by www.baseballeurope.com
A couple of days ago on a Monday afternoon fans of Herts Baseball Club tuned into BBC to see a true Herts Baseball legend carry the Olympic Torch through the streets of London.
Jason Greenberg joined Herts in 2005 upon his arrival from Seattle. Since then his contribution to the club has been incredible. He has performed countless roles within the club – player, manager, webmaster, board member, youth team coach, radio presenter, event organiser, journalist and many more. It is not a coincidence that the club’s most successful era coincides with Greenberg’s time with the club.
He was a key member of the 2007 Falcons who won the AA pennant and were promoted to the AAA League. In 2008 he was appointed Manager of the Falcons and he put in place a structure which even some professional clubs would be envious of. This paid off immediately as the Herts Falcons became AAA National Champions at the first time of asking with a memorable 6-3 win against the Oxford Kings in the Final. The Falcons achieved back-to-back promotions up the leagues which made Jason Greenberg the first manager in Herts Baseball history to take the team to the highest league tier of British Baseball. In the team’s first year in the NBL, Greenberg took the Falcons to the postseason playoffs.
As a player of the Falcons, Greenberg was always one of the team’s top performers winning numerous honours including the highest honour of Herts Falcons’ Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2007.
Jason Greenberg honours as a Herts player
2006, Most Runs, Herts Falcons (AAA)
2007, MVP, Herts Falcons (AA)
2007, Home Run Champion, Herts Falcons (AA)
2007, Most RBIs, Herts Falcons (AA)
2007, AA South Champion, Herts Falcons (AA)
2008, AAA National Champion, Herts Falcons (AAA)
2009, Home Run Champion, Herts Falcons (NBL)
2009, Reached NBL Playoffs, Herts Falcons (NBL)
In 2011 he turned his attention to the Great Britain National Team becoming the General Manager where he has since applied the same professional approach which he adopted at Herts. This has been recognised by the rest of the baseball world and Great Britain was recently added to the qualifying round for MLB’s 2013 World Baseball Classic.
Baseball was taken out of the list of Olympic sports just 3 days after the Games were awarded to London, but with Jason Greenberg carrying the torch it is great to see that the organisers have not forgotten one of the most popular sports in the world. It is extra special for members of Herts, who apart from Jason, have several other representatives like Mark Caress and Nick White who are involved in various other roles in the Olympic Games.
Herts Baseball Club President, Aspi Dimitrov, said: “Everyone was chuffed to bits when we learned that Jason was going to be one of the carriers of the Olympic Torch. It is a fantastic tribute for one of the hardest working members of British baseball. It is a very fitting recognition of Jason’s contribution to Herts, the GB Team and British baseball and softball as a whole”
“Jason will soon be moving to America and everyone will miss him, but there is always the hope that his career will bring him and his family back to this country.” – added Dimitrov.