by Hungarian Baseball and Softball Federation, www.baseball.hu
The second tournament during the MOBSSz Winter Baseball Week took place on February 28th, Sunday and was open for cadet and juvenile age group (age 10-15). 54 kids showed up for the tournament from six clubs. Érd (website), Óbuda (website), Mikepércs and Jánossomorja (website) arrived with full squads, Szentendre (website) and Nemesvámos players formed a team together. That means five teams were waiting for the ump to call play ball!
The game was played with specific indoor rules. All games were coach-pitched. Hitters started with 0-2 count, so one had to hit if he wanted to stay alive which led to very intensive games. Scoring was also different from outdoor baseball. In offense teams received points for every base the player reached on his hit and an extra point for crossing home plate. In defense every out made scored a run for the defensive team. Games were two innings long and innings were not defined by the number of outs, but rather by time. Each half inning was five minutes long, regardless of any outs being made.
The tournament was played in a round robin format. The teams not playing had the chance to train their players’ skills or just play other sports in the smaller gym of the beautiful facility of the American International School of Budapest (www.aisb.hu). It was good to see that lot of parents showed up to support their kids. Everyone had fun, enjoyed the day, there were loud cheers for every homerun and nice defensive actions.
10 games, 1,260 points and 240 minutes later Team Érd was crowned as the first indoor youth baseball champion of Hungary! The tournament happened at the end of carnival season so during the trophy ceremony kids were even more zinged up as Batman showed up to present the trophy to the winning team and he was also very friendly and posed for some pictures with the kids too!
Everyone left the building with a smile on his face, the tournament was the perfect closure of the 9 days long Indoor Training week of the Hungarian Federation. To be continued next winter!
Photos by Ingo Gottwald