With the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) reforming the European Cups from 2016 on, this year’s events in Paris, France and Rotterdam, Netherlands kick off the competition season on the European stage this week.
Six teams in Paris and six teams in Rotterdam battle for a spot in the European Champions Cup best-of-three finals, which will be played in August. From Tuesday to Saturday a round robin will be played, the top two meet in the final on Sunday. Additionally the top four at each site will claim a spot in next year’s European Champions Cup. The teams in fifth and sixth will be relegated to the new CEB Cup. The CEB Cup will be completed with the winners of the European Cup Qualifiers, which will be played from June 15 to 21.
As usual the teams from the Dutch Hoofdklasse and Italian Baseball League are the heavy favorites in the competition. In the French capital defending European Champions Cup winner T&A San Marino takes on Italian champion Unipol Bologna, Belarus champion Brest Zubrs, German champion Solingen Alligators as well as the vice champions Paris UC (France) and L&D Amsterdam (Netherlands). Besides the home ballpark of PUC the second site will be Chartres, home of the French Cubs. Games will be played at 12pm, 3pm and 5pm.
At Family Stadium in Rotterdam, which also will serve as host for the World Port Tournament later this summer, four national champions with Curacao Neptunus Rotterdam (Netherlands), Templiers Senart (France), Draci Brno (Czech Republic) and KNTU Elizavetgrad (Ukraine) take on vice champion ASD Rimini (Italy) and Heidenheim Heidekoepfe (Germany). Thanks to floodlights all games will be played in Rotterdam at 10.30am, 3pm and 7.30pm.
Live play by play will be available from both European Cups at www.baseballstats.eu. Mister-Baseball.com will publish daily recaps.