Baseball is more than a just a sport to 12-year-old Richard Schweiker. It's a passport.

Richard, a rising seventh-grader at Lucille Brown Middle School, went to Japan last year as part of a Richmond Little League team that played friendly games against their counterparts in Saitama, Richmond's sister city near Tokyo.

This week, Richard has a chance to renew that baseball series -- and the friendships he made last year -- during a visit by Saitama Little Leaguers.

He said getting to know Japanese kids with similar interests has helped him understand that Japan is more than just "that country overseas."

"It's many people, many cultures, many different lives," Richard said.

The Schweiker family -- Richard's father, Rich, is senior assistant attorney general for Virginia -- is hosting two of the Japanese players, Hiroto Hoshi, 11, and Takahito Kikuchi, 10.

The teams played a pair of games yesterday at Byrd Park. Today, they'll spend most of the day at Virginia Beach but return in time to catch the R-Braves game at The Diamond.

On the field, baseball serves as an international language for the players. Many of the Japanese players know some English -- and many Japanese baseball terms come from English.

Their method of communication is the international language of baseball, "Still," said Richmond Little League manager Lynnie Brugh, "there are a lot of charades going on. But it all works out."

In the Schweiker household, the language barrier is crossed in several ways. The family has an electronic translator that can sound out certain expressions, and they even resort to the language translator on Dictionary.com.

Most of all, Rich Schweiker said, smiles go a long way.

The Little League baseball exchange with Saitama through Richmond's Sister Cities program has been running for 15 years, Brugh said.

On alternating years, either a Richmond team visits Saitama or a team from Saitama comes to Richmond for a week of baseball and friendship, he said.

For the Saitama team that came here this year, 26 Little Leaguers ranging from 10 to 12 years old were chosen from teams throughout the city.

For many of the them, it is their first time to travel abroad, Saitama's general manager, Hidemi Iida, said through an interpreter.

"These kids are the future, they need to be good citizens," Iida said, adding that the kids need to be internationally minded citizens.

The players from Saitama all stay with host families. Some got to stay with the families of Richmond players who visited Saitama last year.

"It hopefully makes a lifetime impression," Brugh said.

For Hiroto, the 11-year-old first baseman for Saitama, the trip has been a chance to make friends and try out different food -- so far, his favorite is the hamburgers his host dad cooked on a grill.

When they leave Richmond on Sunday, the Saitama players and their coaches will head to New York to sightsee before returning to Japan.

The Richmond Sister Cities Commission was created by the City Council in 1980.

Richmond also maintains sister-city relationships Zhengzhou, China; Richmond upon Thames, England; Uijeongbu, Korea; and Windhoek, Namibia.
Contact Sarah Alfaham at (804) 649-6435 or salfaham@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Ed Kelleher at (804) 649-6148 or ekelleher@timesdispatch.com.