by Jan Řápek
As the years go by, new season is here. Czech softball extraleague men (ELM) is starting last weekend of April. Here are the favourites team of this season.
Reigning champions are SC 80 Chomutov, also known as The Beavers. The most succesfull team in Europe won ELM eleven times. They also won European Cup Men six time, it’s also record. Chomutov won their eleventh title after two years long break. The greatist merit of this title belong to Luboš Vrbenský. This fourty years old pitcher is a legend of czech softball. On the other hand, Chomutov found themselves in the age of team rebuilding so they don’t consider themselves as favourite team.
„We are rebuilding the team. We have couple of young players, who just came to our first team. Some younger players already played the last final, but they still need lots of experiences to reach. We also los tone of our best player Jaroslav Mikulec, who played firs or third base on who was oe of the best batter in the league,“ says spokesman of Chomutov Jan Řápek.
With rebuilding Chomutov, there si another favourite team. It’s last runer-up Spectrum Praha. This team from Prague ended up on second place last season, but they won two titles during last three years. All teams need to count with them. Spectrum Praha are usually very good batters such as David Mertl, Petr Vácha or Patrik Kolkus but they also can rely on pitcher Aleš Jetmar. All of them are members of the czech national team.
Czech league is well balanced. Team power is equaled. Teams like Hroši Havlíčkův Brod, Radotínský SK, Eagles Praha or Tempo Praha want to win the race as well.
Newcomer of this season is team SK Slavia Plzeň. They payed one year in the second league, but they succed they comeback. Pilsen team rely on pitcher Martin Svoboda who has played in Eagles Praha or in Rome.
Lots of foreigners are coming to play to Czech republic. Team Eagles Praha, champions from 2009, has signed up two players Anthony Beaumont and Jeffry Visser from The Netherlands. Team Hroši Havlíčkův brod also signed up two foreign players, but not from The Netherlands but from Denmark. They are pitchers Kim Hansem and Jasper Panduro. They both already played for Havlíčkův brod last year. On the other side team Žraloci Ledenice will probably miss their support from Enrique Javier and Sebastian Gervasutti.
Photo by Svatopluk Smysl