European players finally welcome in Italy

by Pim van Nes

Four months after the first attempts by Italian clubs to contract European players, their federation yesterday announced that the long lasted import ban on players from other EU countries will be lifted as per next season 2009. Since the last two Dutch players left Italy twenty years ago, no other European player was admitted by FIBS for the national competition despite of European Union laws have stipulated open internal borders between member countries. Major League Baseball pitcher Win Remmerswaal (Parma, Nettuno and San Marino) and Hoofdklasse pitcher/infielder Eddy Tromp (Firenze) enjoyed their seasons among Italian and American players, but met other European players only during European Cup tournaments.

While presently European players develop their talents in other European countries than in their home country, Italy has managed to keep its European borders closed to protect its baseball lineups in Italian Baseball League stadiums up to and including the last Olympic baseball year 2008. In the meantime Italian baseball lost its average second position in Europe in the 20th century and has reached the average fourth ranking in European Championship tournaments in the 21st century so far. According to a recent world wide ranking published by IBAF on its official website, Italy has the fifteenth position in the world and the fifth position within Europe behind the Netherlands (150.47), Spain (51.50), Germany (47.00) and Great-Britain (45.00). With 40.30 IBAF points Italy precedes Czech Republic (32.80), France (30.00) and Sweden (25.00). In the latest European Championship tournament 2007 France and Spain each beat the Italian national team, which as a consequence degraded to the B-category in Europe linked to Italy’s final seventh spot in the tournament.

On Sunday Italian federation president Riccardo Fraccari hastened to boost his club presidents in Italy’s attempts “per rendere il massimo campionato il vero centro del baseball europeo” which in reasonable English means: “to make the Italian Serie A1 the real center of European baseball”. To this purpose Fraccari wants borders re-opened for other European players in order to improve performances on Italian diamonds.

Earlier this year Fraccari started a new cooperation with the baseball federation of Malta, being the second favored country as such since Slovenia. In his press release Fraccari referred to two Maltese players, who had joined a minor league club in the Netherlands. Open invitations by Italian federation FIBS to players abroad turned out to be useless, as no one ever responded to this many years lasting recruiting advertisement on the Italian federation website.

Now the hunt is on in Europe.

Pim van Nes
Baseball writer for
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