Italian baseball is still buzzing about Danesi Nettuno’s coup to bring one of well-known pitchers in baseball into the Italian Baseball League. Dirk Hayhurst is currently promoting his new book “Out of my League”. The clip shows him talking to Keith Olbermann about the book, baseball and the real life of players behind the jerseys.

While the weather this winter wasn’t that bad so far, it is certainly not good enough to play outdoors baseball in most parts of Europe. So while we’re counting down the days until spring training, enjoy this 15 minutes highlight reel of the best plays of the 2011 season in Major League Baseball.

In Europe clubs and federations have tried to use “Moneyball” to create interest for baseball with mixed results so far. German fans have to wait until February 2 to see the movie reaching theaters, but thanks to big stars on the film and Golden Globe nominations, they should be able to see it on the big screen. This isn’t always the case with baseball movies in Europe. To create as much attention as possible the Hamburg Knights have initiated a project to bring as many fans into cinemas on February 2. Check Facebook for more information.

In case you’re wondering how it is possible that a human being is able to throw 105 MPH, the TV show Sports Science tried to explain it. The short clip features Cuban southpaw Aroldis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds, analyzing his mechanics.

On October 15, 2011 the Dutch National Team turned the International Baseball World upside down by defeating Cuba in the finals of the 2011 IBAF Baseball World Cup, becoming the Baseball World Champions. Remember the memorable night one more time with this nine-plus minute highlight reel.

Well, it seems that baseball in space requires fewer players on a team in comparison to planet earth. Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa showed it on the International Space Station a couple of weeks ago, when he pitched, hit and caught the same ball on the same play.

Honkbalsite.com uploaded a nine-plus minute highlight reel of the historic championship game at the 2011 IBAF Baseball World Cup between the Netherlands and Cuba to YouTube, courtesy of the NOS broadcast. Watch and enjoy one more time of this important piece of European Baseball.

The baseball community highly anticipates the release of the movie “Moneyball”, which is based on the book with the same name and describes the story of Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane. The movie stars Brad Pitt, Robin Wright and Jonah Hill. “Moneyball” starts these days in movie theaters in the United States. Europe has to wait a little longer. According to IMDB, France gets it on November 9, the Netherlands and Hungary on November 10, Ireland, Great Britain and Italy on November 25 and Germany, Portugal, Sweden and Turkey on December 8 and 9. We have no information on other countries.

You should include this type of batting practice in your daily routine.

It has to be one of the funniest reactions following an ejection by a manager ever. Butch Hobson, a former player of the Boston Red Sox and now manager of the Lancaster Barnstormers in the independent Atlantic League, got ejected during the second game of a doubleheader against the Somerset Patriots. But instead of walking back to the clubhouse he removed first base, took a pen, gave his autograph and handed the base a fan in the stands.

h/t Big League Stew

Germany’s NBA star Dirk Nowitzki, who led the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Championship a few days ago, threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the Texas Rangers – New York Mets MLB Interleague game on Friday.

The former English football player Gary Neville, who served as captain of Manchester United for five years, recently attended the Chicago White Sox – Oakland Athletics game in the MLB and threw out the ceremonial first pitch. He was there to promote an exhibition game between Manchester United and Chicago Fire, which will be played at Soldier Field in Chicago on July 23.

One of the most anticipated baseball movies, “Moneyball” is in the final stages of production. This is the official trailer of the movie about GM Billy Beane and his Oakland Athletics. It is scheduled to be released in the USA on September 23. Europe follows in November and December.

We still own you the highlight reel of Omar Williams’ performance at the 2011 International Power Showcase at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. The French national teamer hit seven homeruns, with the longest landing after traveling 485ft.

Thanks to YouTube User mgmvervaat we get a chance to recall some historic games in the Dutch Hoofdklasse. The seven-plus clip shows highlights from a matchup between Neptunus and the Haarlem Nicols. There is a lot more available in the channel. Check it out.

In this clip Will Musson talks about the 5-step wind-up

The Paris Universite Club Baseball program has launched a new project aiming to provide accessible instructional information for players of the program, as well as baseball players all around the world. Paris UC Head Coach and Director of Technique Jeff Stoeckel has created a YouTube page (www.youtube.com/ParisUC) with a series of instructional videos for young as well as experienced players. The goal of the YouTube project is to provide short, easily-understood video clips that can be referenced as a guide to proper Pitching, Hitting, Fielding, Baserunning, and Conditioning fundamentals. Additionally, content specific to Paris UC Baseball will be uploaded to the site to provide more visibility to baseball program as a whole. The website will be updated weekly with instructional videos and other content.

The Dortmund Wanderers did a preseason interview with head coach and starting pitcher Matt Kemp.

The Swiss TV Station CityChannel1.com is producing a weekly magazine about Baseball and Softball in Switzerland and is also going to broadcast games of the Nationalliga A finals this fall live. This is the second issue from April 11.

Red Bull produced this pretty cool video clip of San Francisco Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum, which shows his throwing mechanics with 1,000 frames per second.

In 2004 Robert Cochrane and his father (who has Parkinson’s Disease) attempted to do a road trip, trying to see a game at each of the 30 MLB parks. Along the way they shot an award-winning documentary about their journey. Now you can watch the documentary on YouTube. Check it out. They even visited the original “Field of Dreams” in Iowa.

The Swiss TV Station CityChannel1.com is producing a weekly magazine about Baseball and Softball in Switzerland and is also going to broadcast games of the Nationalliga A finals this fall live. This is the first issue from April 5th.

Last weekend Stade Toulousain won both games against the Montigny Cougars in the French Elite League. While we are awaiting the results from this game day in France, check out some video highlights of the Tigers.

Opening Day in the Italian Baseball League is on April 9. The eight teams are still in Spring Training mode, while the foreign players arrive in Italy. This clip shows some action from a preseason game between the North East Knights and Telemarket Rimini.

It is already a few months in the books, but since the season in European Baseball only has started in a few countries, check out this five-minute highlight clip of last year’s duel between Italy and Spain at the Italian Baseball Week.

Last weekend Baseball Navarra and the Tenerife Marlins Puerto Cruz met for a doubleheader in Pamplona, Spain. After getting shut out in game one, Navarra handed Tenerife its first loss of the season in the second game. This clip shows six-plus minutes of the twin bill in the Spanish Division de Honor.

This week Italian third baseman Alex Liddi of the Seattle Mariners hit two grand slams on consecutive days, producing a few headlines among the baseball media in the United States and in Europe. The clip shows the second homerun against the Los Angeles Angels.

The Baseball and Softball Clinic DBV Academy 2011 is already in the books since a few weeks. However just now the organizers released a six-minute video clip, which shows some impressions from the three-day event in Paderborn. They also published some material of the speakers on the DBV Academy website. They also revealed that the 2012 DBV Academy again will be held at the Ahorn Sportpark in Paderborn.

Together with partners Bell, Ridell, Giro and Blackburn, Easton unveiled a protective pitching helmet prototype to the public on Monday during a presentation. On hand were Easton-Bell Sports CEO Paul Harrington, Little League President Stephen Keener, California Interscholastic Federation Executive Director Marie Ishida, and high-school baseball player Gunnar Sandberg.

It is a few weeks since the Perth Heat won the championship in the Australian Baseball League. But we just now stumbled over this clip with a few news broadcasts reporting on the finals.

Former Major League catcher Mike Piazza, who again serves as hitting coach for Team Italy during their current trip to Spring Training in Florida, talked to ESPN on Saturday morning about the squad and its success last year. He also revealed that he will join Italy during the fall for the IBAF Baseball World Cup in Panama together with fellow former big leaguer Frank Catalanotto. Italy was playing Minor Leaguers of the New York Mets on Saturday in Port St. Lucie, losing 1-8.

On Thursday we published an interview with film maker John C. Fitzgerald, talking about his documentary “Playing for Peanuts”. Over the last four days we showed you episode one of the TV series. On Friday we had the first segment of the show, on Saturday the second and on Sunday the third. Today number four.

You can also check out his Facebook pages for additional footage:
Playing for Peanuts at Facebook
The Emerald Diamond at Facebook

On Thursday we published an interview with film maker John C. Fitzgerald, talking about his documentary “Playing for Peanuts”. Over the next four days we want to show you episode one of the TV series. On Friday we had the first segment of the show and on Saturday the second. Today the third one is coming up.

You can also check out his Facebook pages for additional footage:
Playing for Peanuts at Facebook
The Emerald Diamond at Facebook

On Thursday we published an interview with film maker John C. Fitzgerald, talking about his documentary “Playing for Peanuts”. Over the next four days we want to show you episode one of the TV series. On Friday we had the first segment of the show. Today the second.

You can also check out his Facebook pages for additional footage:
Playing for Peanuts at Facebook
The Emerald Diamond at Facebook

On Thursday we published an interview with film maker John C. Fitzgerald, talking about his documentary “Playing for Peanuts”. Over the next four days we want to show you episode one of the TV series.

You can also check out his Facebook pages for additional footage:
Playing for Peanuts at Facebook
The Emerald Diamond at Facebook

The FC Barcelona, CB Sant Boi and CB Viladecans kicked off the 2011 European Baseball schedule last weekend with the first games of the new year, as the Catalonian Championship started. Barcelona celebrated a pair of shutouts at the start if the tournament. The fine guys from Bateando were on hand and produced some short clips. Go to Bateando.com for the rest.

A few days ago the Italian Baseball League club T&A San Marino announced that they have signed the former Minor Leaguer Chris Staehely to strengthen its pitching staff for the upcoming season. This is a video profile from his time at Princeton University.

The French Elite League club Savigny Lions has produced this trailer to get its fans ready for the 2011 season.

This is a five-plus minute highlight reel of Japanese Baseball from the 2010 season. There are a few nice plays in it.

Baseball.it tipped us to a 36-minute video clip of game four of the 1992 semi-finals between Telemarket Rimini and Cariparma Parma.

Every Baseball fan probably knows about the TV Show in India “The Million Dollar Arm”, which helped two people to become minor league pitchers in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. A similar TV show in a Reality TV format is coming to the United States. “The American Dream” will give players who haven’t gotten the opportunity to become a minor leaguer a second chance.

The concept of the show:

The American Dream will give you that chance. We will bring REAL major league scouts together with talented ballplayers across the country and give position players the shot they hunger for. This fall we intend to stop at 5 major cities throughout America and give the best of the best the opportunity to show what they have to our scouts. From each of these cities our scouts will select 5 players to move on to the final round of competition. We will not be including pitchers for the first season.

The winner of the TV show will get a contract with a real minor league team. There isn’t much further information available yet, but you can check the official website for further updates: www.theamericandreamshow.net

Trying to make a ballpark a year-round venue some Major League organizations have built restaurants in it or host football games. The Cleveland Indians took a different way and constructed a winter playground at Progressive Field. They have installed an ice skating track throughout the outfield, a small hockey rink and a ten-lane snow tubing hill in center field.

Last Friday South Korea defeated Taiwan 9-3 in the gold medal game of the baseball tournament at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. The clip shows a six-plus minute video recap of the decisive game.

Ever wondered how a baseball is made? Science Channel answers this question in a short video clip.

Last weekend legendary MLB manager Sparky Anderson died after suffering from deteriorating dementia condition at the age of 76. The former second baseman was the skipper of just two big league teams, but definitely left his mark. He was at the helm for the Cincinnati Reds from 1970 to 1978, leading them to World Series titles in 1975 and 1976. Afterwards he joined the Detroit Tigers in the same position, where he stayed from 1979 to 1995, winning another World Series in 1984. He was named Manager of the Year in 1984 and 1987. In 2000 the Veterans Committee inducted him into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The clip is a short tribute to Sparky Anderson.