Last Friday representatives of Curacao Neptunus Rotterdam, the Vaessen Pioniers (both NED), T&A San Marino (SMA) and the Rouen Huskies (FRA) met together with Wim van den Hurk (Euro League Baseball President), Jan van der Sande (Press Officer) and Jan Maarten Kops (Organizer Collegiate Baseball League Europe) in Amsterdam to found the European Association of Professional Baseball. Curacao Neptunus Rotterdam, Vaessen Pioniers (both NED), T&A San Marino (SMA), Rouen Huskies, Templiers Senart (both FRA), Unipol Bologna (ITA), Buchbinder Legionaere Regensburg and the Heidenheim Heidekoepfe (both GER) are supposed to form the ELB in the inaugural season.
Only a few people knew before and the news created quite some turbulence in European Baseball. Even though a press release mentioned a couple of details about the league, including a start date of April 2016, a lot of questions need to be answered. Wim van den Hurk was so kind to answer a couple of them in an exclusive interview with Mister-Baseball.com.
Mister-Baseball.com: What was the reason to start the Euro League Baseball? On what criteria did you select the teams?
Wim van den Hurk: European Baseball needs a new boost to grow its popularity and fan base and to attract more youth. But also to improve the highest level of play in Europe which automatically improves the average level of national leagues.
Selection criteria are ambition, results, accommodation, and geographical location.
Mister-Baseball.com: Will the league be open to other teams in the future, for example from the Czech Republic or other countries?
Wim van den Hurk: Yes. In our plans through 2020 we expect to expand to South and North Division consisting of 12-16 teams.
Mister-Baseball.com:Right now the league seems to be limited to two teams from the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain and France. Is this going to be a constant figure of two teams from one country apiece or is this flexible, so that for example three teams from the Netherlands and just one from Germany would be also a possibility?
We will be flexible but cost effectiveness will be a key factor.
Mister-Baseball.com: We know it’s still early in the process, but how can we imagine the format and the schedule? Who is going to make the rules?
Wim van den Hurk: After the founding of the European Association of Professional Baseball last Friday we’ve talked a lot about format, schedule and rules. So you can imagine this is a work in progress.
League structure we’re thinking of is ELB games played from Monday through Thursday. I.e. two Dutch teams travel to France together. On Monday and Tuesday 1 Dutch team plays 1 French team and on Wednesday and Thursday 1 Dutch team plays 2 French team. For 2 Dutch team the other way around. One road trip means two away series. All 6 pm games.
Mister-Baseball.com: Except for a few clubs like Regensburg, most of the club teams in European Baseball fail to bring in people into the stands. On the other hand national team competitions have been well attended. How do you plan to attack these concerns?
Wim van den Hurk: We’ve action plans for teams to arrange affordable family entertainment with themes for different age groups, theme nights for men, women, business and family. We want to create a minor/independent league environment.
Mister-Baseball.com: Will the players mainly be recruited in Europe or will it be open without any restrictions to “foreign” players too?
Wim van den Hurk: The players are from the mentioned teams with possibilities to expand rosters with foreign players.
Mister-Baseball.com: You choose to leave national, continental and international federations and organizations out of the loop in the initiation phase of the Euro League Baseball. As we all unfortunately know politics play a major role in European Baseball. But still the governing bodies of the sport are the federations. How and in which way do you want to include federations into the process?
Wim van den Hurk: In the upcoming weeks, meetings with national and international federations are scheduled.
Mister-Baseball.com: And last but not least, the main question: How will the league be financed, especially regarding payment of the players and travel costs?
Wim van den Hurk: We’re working on a League sponsor for the first three years.
This is a wonderful opportunity for European baseball to finally stand on its own two feet — which, if history is any guide, Van den Hurk et.al. will unfortunately manage to destroy or neutralize.
I say this as an American college coach who would very much love to see European baseball become competitive.
Let’s hope this time things are different.
If the ELB is serious about genuine quality baseball — instead of the bureaucratic posturing which is the hallmark of European baseball — it would do the following….
*Limit rosters to European-born players. While there are academies all over Europe (with and without the MLB stamp) which play at developing competitive baseball athletes, the focus is almost all on mechanics and virtually none on game skills. A higher level of skill development is necessary to raise Europe’s level of play. Moreover, there is little incentive to develop native players because everyone rides the backs of Western Hemisphere players to earn little trophies for their clubs. Europe will be strong when Europe commits to developing quality native players. This will never occur as long as foreign players (including Dominicans, Arubans and Carocaons) are employed to win European teams’ championships for them.
The ELB represents European baseball’s first genuine opportunity to develop serious competitive baseball with your own players. If you’ll do it.
*It is a very good idea to play Monday-Thursday schedules. This would eliminate conflict with each federation’s top and juniors leagues which usually play Friday-Sunday. It would require the games be under lights, but that is a reasonable standard for a premium league. And, if the ELB intends to draw fans, it should adopt the promotions and activities which successful US independent, minor-league (and, to a lesser degree, top-20 college) teams use to draw fans to their week night games. You are wise to play regular-season games in regions, which will build bonds and mitigate the cost of travel.
*Stay away from the federations. It is generally accepted that the federations’ bureaucracies are so political as to be anti-competitive. Moreover, local clubs are universally committed to their own success at the expense of developing their national game. It would be too much to break down the walls of these fiefdoms. So, the ELB should go around them. Be polite and, when possible, support the federations’ and clubs’ success. But develop your own brand free of them.
*Clubs should host, not compete. If Rotterdam and Rengensberg, et.al., put teams in the EBL, you’ll be right back in the same trap of petty competition. You’ll be so wrapped up in politics, it will strangle your league within the first 2 years.
Instead, have Unicorns host the south Netherlands team in the ELB. The team might be primarily Rotterdam players at first, but players from all over its region may compete for spots on the Rotterdam roster. No single club in Europe can be as strong as a proper ELB team. If it can, what’s the use of having an ELB? Moreover, without foreign players, your teams would need a wider recruiting area to be competitive. To become a higher level of competition, it is critical that you be a Dutch team or a German national team, rather than Amsterdam’s team or Solingen’s.
*Be a resource for your region. Clubs from Paderborn to Prague have tried to promote their academies as resource for their regions, but it was quickly revealed their real goals are to use regional players to strengthen their own clubs. If the ELB programs wish to develop loyalty in their regions (which yields fans and sponsors), they will provide useful services to all clubs and players in their regions. They will offer regular — USEFUL — instruction to players throughout the season. Will they cooperate with local clubs academies? Of course. But they must be a higher level. If the ELB teams want to be valuable to their sponsors, their coaches and players might adopt different local clubs each year and invest in improving those clubs’ competitive ability. And rotate adopted clubs each season. When an ELB team becomes the prime influence in regional baseball hosting it becomes a sought-after distinction for a club like Rotterdam.
*Be a standard of excellence. The goal should be, not only the best teams, but the source of excellence in European baseball.
To accomplish that, the money saved by not hiring foreign players should be used to hire coaches from the Western Hemisphere, primarily retired US college coaches. College coaches are far more skilled and infinitely more experienced than coaches in the lower minor leagues. They work harder. You will need at least two foreign coaches per team, and they will work to exhaustion, building up the skills of their own teams and growing the game by creating the programs mentioned here. Some will have experience in promotions which can guide your staff in that critical effort.
If you want this thing to take off, it has to be about joining forces. The appropriate way to break down the walls of the clubs and the federations is to help each of them get better. If the Amsterdam or Haarlem team plays a Monday game at the host park, its players who are on the host club should invite teams to the host club’s big game on Sunday. Or execute and promote a youth clinic and/or bootcamp, then share credit with the host club — better yet, make one a joint effort.
The Rotterdam ELB team’s coaches might form a bi-weekly gathering for coaches at all levels to talk baseball and drink beer and eat that awful raw fish of yours. In America, coaches at similar levels are a fraternity. When a junior college coach from Arizona meets a colleague from Tennessee, they have an immediate affinity. And a state’s college coaches at all levels talk regularly throughout the season. European baseball has no such fraternity; the development of one would strengthen the game by empowering club & youth coaches to share information and support one another. For that matter, the ELB club could form a coaches’ hotline to help colleagues in youth ball.
The great weakness in European championship play is that the national teams are only together for a few weeks a year. It is beyond me how anyone can possibly expect Greg Frady to build a quality German national team when he spends 2-3 weeks a year with them. The ELB offers opportunities to keep most of the national team together on two teams for full seasons — and further cross-fertilize when the teams travel together. A wise federation would hire the staffs of its ELB teams to coach its national team.
The challenge before the ELB is reflected in federation baseball flack Ricardo Schiroli’s May 13 criticism on this site. It was soaked in the petty provincialism which has stagnated the game in Europe for many decades. If anybody kills baseball on your continent, it will be these unproductive bureaucrats’ scratching and grasping for every centimeter of power they can obtain. The utter ignorance of his critique…a gross failure to understand the game.
If it is to overcome the massive pettiness which reduces the European game to mediocrity today, the ELB must become the continent’s engine of excellence. A band of flaming evangelists. Its first passion must be growing the game in every way it can think of. If it has passion — and recruits coaches, players and off-field staff with the passion — it could revolutionize European baseball in 3-5 years. But it will have to grow things a meter at a time; a persistent focus which simply ignores the naysayers (not conflicting with them, just ignoring them). Otherwise, it will sink into the club self-centeredness which will make it just the latest European failure.
If Wim Van den Hurk wishes to discuss the possibilities, he may contact Mr. Baseball, which has my permission to share my email address with him.
ELB, you are undertaking the challenge of your lives. Good luck.