Mister Baseball

by Sebastian Zwyer / Matthias Jung

The Therwil Flyers are one of the oldest Baseball Clubs in Switzerland. It was founded in 1980 and has now about 100 active members. With over 150 passive members, the Therwil Flyers are one of the bigger Clubs in Switzerland. Since 1985 the first team played always in the highest league, the NLA. The Flyers had a lot of Success in the past and became 7-time Swiss Champions and Swiss cup Winners once.

Therwil is close to Basel and has almost 10.000 residents. The Therwil Flyers have to share their field with the soccer club of Therwil. Even tough the field is always in good condition. During the home games, the Flyers have a little Food stand, which is unfortunately not a standard in Switzerland.

TEAMS:

Like I already said, the first Team had a lot of success and reached between 1988 and 2004 every time the Final for the Swiss Championships except one year (1996). They also won the Swisscup in 2002. The Flyers profited from TOP Coaches in the past, they helped develop the players and Teams and showed Switzerland what Baseball is really like! One of the first and best was Juan Vistuer Valdez, (National team Coach Cuba), in the early 90’s.

He was followed by Marvin Moore, (USA), with whom the Flyers had their biggest success. Lots of other Coaches followed, later there were playing Coaches like Anthony Bennett, (USA), with whom we won in 2003 the Swiss-Championship. The Flyers had a great experience last season with their first Italian Baseball Coach Vic Luciani a Hall of Famer in Italy!

The latest playing coach is John Alexander, a Pro-Player in 2006 for the Rookie League Braves Team. In the last three years, we have missed the Playoffs, always finishing the regular season in fifth place. Some of the good, older players, ended their career in 2003, and the Flyers had a very young team that had to get used to the level of the NLA. One of the successes in recent European Baseball are two wins in the famous Eiffel-Cup, in Zülpich Germany in 2002, (beating 1.BL Team Cologne Dodgers), and in 2008 beating the German 2.BL Team, the  Pulheim Gophers. In addition the Flyers joined lots of European Cups  all over Europe, the last one coming in 2003 in Antwerp.

The Flyers have always had a second team with a lot of good young players with potential. Most of the time in the past, the Club had a third team playing in the lowest Swiss league.

With a Cadets, (under 15), and Juveniles, (U 12), teams playing, and winning Swiss-Championship Titles almost every other year, the Flyers have always plenty of young Talent with a bright Future.

Besides the Baseball, the Flyers probably have the best Softball Team in Switzerland. The girls have reached the Finals eight times in the last eight years, and five times have walked away with the championship. They play almost every year in a European Cup Tournament. The Team includes 3-4 National team players, and lots of young new Girls just started with Softball. Also the ladies learned a lot from foreign Softball Coaches in the past. Hawaiian, Czech, and Italian coaches have helped develop Softball in the Flyers Organisation. In 2008 we have brought over a player/pitcher acquired from Minnesota, Emily McNamara. She played Infield on a high College Level at Oklahoma SE.

2008

The first Team is no doubt the strongest team the Flyers have had in the last years. With a lot of young guys developing well. The Flyers also have four players who are members of the Swiss National Team. Besides that, they have three guys from the Dominican Republic and one Australian Player. For the 2008 season, the  Flyers signed playing/coach John Alexander for this Season. He was a member of the Flyers for a short time 2 years ago in 2006, before being signed by the Atlanta Braves. This puts together a very strong Lineup. With Stefan Koller, the Flyers also have one of the best Swiss pitchers. With all this quality, the Flyers expect to be one of the teams who make the Playoffs this season; anything else would be a disappointment.

The second Team, coached by Jim Cassady, has some good young pitchers, including the two top U18-Nationalteam Pitchers!. Actually, the whole team is very young, and will play with nothing to lose in the NLB (2nd division).

The Flyers organisation always helped Swiss Baseball and Softball to develop as much as possible. They had members act as  President in the,( SBSF), Swiss Baseball Softball Federation. Many other club members helped, and still help coaching Swiss National teams. The Flyers organise All-star Games in Therwil in 2006 where senior National team played the “all foreigner” team. In Therwil, the Swiss Federation celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2006, and welcomed Mr. Martin Miller, CEB-President who threw the first pitch of the Event. The Flyers have also organised several international tournament involving senior baseball and softball, and in the recent years Junior Tournaments.

www.therwil-flyers.ch