EC Baseball

[gerbie]

For those of you who do like baseball, but do not know there is baseball outside the America's as well...


The Dutch won their fourth consecutive match in the European Championships that started last friday, here in the Netherlands. In a difficult match they scored the only run against France in the 8th inning. Manager Davey Johnson is confident that his team will start hitting better later in the tournament.

The European Championship used to be a simple tournament. Several teams play, the final was Netherlands - Italy always. The Dutch won just over half of them, Italy nearly half. Two years ago things changed. The other countries are getting closer. In Moscow the Russians upset the Dutch in the group phase, then caused a major upset beating Italy in the semi final only to lose narrowly to the Netherlands in the final again. The Netherlands then went on to be the first ever team to beat Cuab at the Sydney Olympics, only missing the semi-final by one win. On amateur level this means they are the fifth country in baseball.

I'm planning on visiting a match next week in the qualifying tournament for the Athens Olympics, which will have the top 6 from this weeks tournament.

More on the European Championships via Yahoo:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-sportsshowcase&prov=ap&type=lgns

in which manager Johnson calls the level TripleA and rising.

Comments

[comraderadmila.livejournal.com]

That was actually really fascinating. I knew very little about the existence of baseball in Europe, so I am glad I have a little bit of info now. Thanks. :)

Re:

[gerbie.livejournal.com]

you're very welcome. I'll write if I actually manage to see a match next week.

[tbone.livejournal.com]

Neat! I'm glad the Europeans are getting into this game more. I would love to see international baseball played with the same zest that World Cup football is.

Re:

[gerbie.livejournal.com]

That will take ages still. Remember Sydney? I went to see three baseball matches. Netherlands beating the Australians, upsetting the Cubans and the semi final between Taiwan and the USA. The USA then went on to win the final against Cuba.

This was a team with 3 retired major leaguers, several minor leaguers and some college guys. Hence, at that very moment there were 30 rosters in the USA that were stronger than theirs. Yet, they still managed to win the Olympic title.

The only chance is that MLB actually stops their games for major tournaments, so that teams like USA, Canada, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and perhaps some other central American countries could come with a decent team.

When this happens, it would also mean that suddenly Cuba isn't the favourite anymore, that the Dutch will never be 5th in the world again and that the Asians have to do exact the same. I don't see all that happening someday soon.

Re:

[tbone.livejournal.com]

No, it won't happen soon. It might never happen. But I can dream. True international competition is fun.

Re:

[gerbie.livejournal.com]

I guess it will take decades at least, so that makes us old men by the time we get somewhere near that situation.

It's good to keep dreaming.