Mister Baseball

by John Baum

With another weekend of Swiss Cup play out of the way, and with no big surprises, the tournament is still loaded with all the favorites ready to do battle in the quarterfinals. If you want to call it a surprise, I wouldn’t consider I called it; the Barracudas 1st league team defeated an NLB team from Hunenberg. That coupled with wins for the NLB and NLA, leave the Barracudas with three of the eight teams left in the tournament! We struggled to get motivated against a very game and young NLB Therwil Flyers team this weekend. At times we struggle to find the motivation necessary to play at the same level against every opponent. That, coupled with good pitching, left me scratching my head as to how to keep my team motivated when they aren’t playing the league’s elite…

This is definitely a problem that I have no problem with. Meaning that being good enough to win without bringing the “A” game isn’t so bad. But to break down facts, with the Swiss Cup and Euro Qualifier, we will play at most 40 games in six months! If you aren’t able to bring your best against every team when playing that little, what do you come to the ballpark for? Now I’m not saying that this is a regular occurrence in my club. Most times we take the field and win games how we are supposed to. We play hard, slide hard, hit hard, pitch hard, and when that’s not enough, that’s ok! I’d rather lose good, than win bad…I try to instill in my guys that it’s how you win, rather than just winning. Now if we win ugly in the Euro Qualifier, or playoffs, I take the “W”!

In my situation here in Bern, my team is loaded with some of the best Swiss guys, along with strong foreign influences. We have found success the last few years at every turn. We have won three straight domestic championships, but have also held our own with some of Europe’s best teams. Last year being a prime example, as we pushed the Royal Greys from Belgium to play their best game. We finished second at the qualifier in Abrantes, Portugal last year defeating the Swedish champions 9-1! It was one of the biggest successes a Swiss club team has enjoyed. The thing is, with that success comes the responsibility of proving it wasn’t a fluke. That means that as a team and as individuals, you must improve your game. You must work on the “little things”, give full attention and effort at practices, and have the desire to become one of the best. That breaks down to the individual player like this, you’re either in it for fun, or you’re in it to prove something to yourself and those who watch and follow the game in Europe.

It’s nice to be in a position to where when you lose; people look at it as a surprise. Or if you win only by five runs and you get a text message, “What happened?”… It’s good to be a Bern Cardinal Baseball player right now, but with success comes accountability! We play the Therwil Flyers this weekend as league play resumes…if we don’t bring our “A” game; we will our “A’s” kicked!