Column: The State of European Baseball following the historic Split in Tokyo #EURvsJPN

by Riccardo Schiroli

What is baseball in Europe is not an easy question to answer. Or better: it’s not easy to find a proper question to that answer.

For instance, Jakub Starik of Czech TV said to the Japan Times that people in his country are “still discovering” the game. Czech TV (2 reporters) and myself were the only media representatives at the Tokyo Dome for the Global Baseball Games between All Euro and Samurai Japan. But let’s go back to the question.

As far as the European Championship, it happens since 1954 and only 4 teams have won it: Italy (they won the first edition, collected 10 overall), Spain (only win in 1955), The Netherlands (first win in 1956, 21 overall) and Belgium (only win in 1967).

The Netherlands has played baseball for over one century and is no doubt the most successful of the countries affiliated to the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB). They dominated in two different eras: from 1956 to 1973 (10 wins out of 11 editions. It would have been 11, but they didn’t participate in 1967) and from 1999 to 2007 (they won 5 in a row).

At the 18 and under level, the story is not so different. Only Italy and The Netherlands have claimed the gold medal (the Dutch 14 times, the Italians 13). The tournament has been played from 1974.

At the club level, it’s still Italy and The Netherlands. We have to go back to the 1960s (Picadero Barcelona in 1963 and Piratas Madrid in 1964) to see a win by a different country with the Dutch and/or the Italians participating

Italy and The Netherlands are arch rivals. In the past, they have also given to one another suspicious looks about the eligibility of some of the players (professionals back in the 1960s, Italian Americans in the 1970s, players from the former dutch colonies recently). This is (hopefully) not the case anymore, but it’s not still enough to say that Italy and The Netherlads do cooperate.

The problem with European Baseball is apparently…testosterone. We are always trying to beat each other, not trying to build something together.

In Tokyo Europe gave a great show of its game, playing very good baseball and showing a lot of discipline on the field. In the end, it was all hugs and “We should be doing this again”.

What we need to do now, is avoiding what happens between the spanish or italian boy and the swedish or german girl on a beach during the Summer: a lot of promises fade rapidly into a few memories. Or maybe a couple of pictures on Facebook.

Are we (I mean, baseball in Europe) able to build from Tokyo? An answer to this question is even more difficult and won’t be coming out of this article. Still, I am trying to contribute with some serious clue.

Europe must be pretty honest in evaluating what happened in Tokyo. The fact our best players can compete on the world stage should be no surprise: The Netherlands eliminated the Dominican Republic from the 2009 World Baseball Classic, then won the Baseball World Cup in 2011, Spain qualified for the World Baseball Classic in 2012, Italy eliminated Mexico and Canada from the 2013 World Baseball Classic, in the same tournament The Netherlands eliminated Cuba and qualified for the semi finals. It also should be noted that these great accomplishments came through a lot of players who haven’t learned to play baseball in Europe.

We are at the first check point: do we have good enough programs to pick the best athletes and make them choose baseball, so that we can turn them in the world class players of tomorrow?

The second check point is just around the corner. Can we develop the world class players of tomorrow without world class competition?

Right now in Europe Italy has by far the toughest competition (not because I am Italian, but because teams representing the Italian Baseball League have won in Europe since 2008), but the top league in the country has the top 4 teams play just 46 games.

Right now, the only way to have the best athletes (those we have succesfully kept from playing soccer or volleyball and turned to baseball through our school programs) develop into world class players is to send them away. Alex Liddi, Alessandro Maestri or Kalian Sams (just the first 3 names that come to my mind) wouldn’t quite be the players they are, if they had not signed professional contracts. Which was good for them and for their future as young men, but for sure made our leagues less competitive.

If we do not have competition, we are not going to attract fans, if we do not attract fans, we are not going to raise money, if we run out of money we won’t be able to fund the school programs to recruite the best athletes, the ones who hopefully may develop into world class players.

I hope whoever is making decisions will at least try to discuss this. But honestly: I am not sure it will happen.

From what I see, the big effort is trying to turn the top competition at the club level into a tournament that saves money for the organizer because less games are played. If this is our highest goal, let’s simply think of Tokyo as the chance to provide those pictures on Facebook and understand top baseball is not our business.