John Miller, head coach of the Brussels Kangaroos and a reporter for a major American newspaper, is chronicling his team’s 2008 season in a column that will appear every Monday on mister-baseball.com. It is the first of several Mister-Baseball Blogs this year.
The final section of Josh Chetwynd’s pleasing book Baseball in Europe, A Country by Country History (Available at Amazon.com), is nine appendices of records, capsule histories and trivia on old world baseball.
He describes every European Championship. Antwerp hosted the inaugural event in 1954. Only four teams participated: Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany. (The Dutch wouldn’t come on board until 1956.) Italy beat Spain in the finals 7-4. The Spaniards made, ahem, eight errors.
France, interestingly, was one of the five founding members of the European Baseball Federation. The French used Tunisian players in the 1950s, Mr. Chetwynd writes.
My Belgique has won one crown in 50-some tries, in 1967. Led by Edgard Vaerendonck and Edmond Trichtveldt, the national squad took out Britain, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Italy and the Netherlands didn’t show up to the Antwerp-hosted event, because they were embroiled in a squabble about the election process for the baseball federation’s president.
That kind of pettiness, unfortunately, is what happens to minority, small-scale cultures, sports and organizations. But progress has been made. In 2008, it would be unthinkable for any Euro country to boycott a continental contest. Nowadays, a dozen nations play pro quality baseball in stadiums seating thousands.
Another section lists Major Leaguers who have played in Europe per country. Italy easily nabs the best record here. A short list of names recognizable (to me, at least): Manny Alexander, the guy who replaced Cal Ripken at short; Tim Birtsas, who won 10 games with Oakland at age 24; Todd Cruz, 1980s utility man supreme; Jaime Navarro, three-time winner of 15 games and renowned Red Sock Carlos Quintana. No other European country, including the Netherlands, even comes close.
What explains it? Maybe sponsorship means Italian clubs can spend more on recruiting talent, but, no offense to anybody living on the North Sea, I’m guessing lifestyle plays a part, too: a vote for espresso, mozzarella and donnas strolling over Heineken and haring.
The championship register is a neat introduction to old world team names (Zurich Barracudas, Belgrade Dogs and Oslo Ballkam Alligators get my cool vote) and a reminder that Brussels – the Senators, expat three-hit wonders — won three national championships, in 1953, 1958 and 1959.
Finally, the bibliography is a reminder that Mr. Chetwynd has done his homework and that the European game remains one of baseball’s least plowed fields. A few dozen books and scholarly articles is all there is.
The scholarly snub makes sense. Not a lot of people play baseball in Europe. Germany leads the pack, with a grand total of 27,884 players, followed by Italy (14,047) and the Netherlands (13,515).
Changing that would make a cool story.
I’m done with the book, but I do want to know how Italians hook big leaguers, where the Tunisians learned to play and what happened to the Brussels Senators. You can’t call, but you can email oldworldpastime@gmail.com. Send a picture of your field, too.