Since the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, the Greek capital had been blessed with a couple of wonderful baseball and softball facilities. However since then it also is a struggle to maintain the ballparks and keep them alive, as baseball and softball hasn’t celebrated a true breakout in the country. With the buildings still intact there was still a glimmer of hope that the ballparks at some time in the future might see more than soccer games, a couple of baseball and softball games and every now and then a European Cup Qualifier.
This hope could vanish quickly. To save money the Greek Baseball and Softball Federations were abandoned and the two sports got inserted into a big Hellenic Gymnastic Federation, which governs a lot of sports, making it even more difficult for a small entity as baseball and softball to survive. On top of that the government has sold the entire Olympic complex of Helinikon. This puts the future of the baseball and softball stadiums in doubt. Already only two training stadiums – which by the way structure-wise would be welcomed by any baseball club in Europe – are in use, while the main ballparks are becoming a habitat to extinguished plants and animals.
To save at least the training stadiums of the 2004 Olympics for Greek baseball and softball, an online petition was launched. The goal is to reach at least 10,000 signatures to give the local baseball and softball community a voice in their goal to keep the sports alive.