Dear Readers,
Wherever you might be found, I wish you all the best as 2023 gets underway, with good health and good weather atop the list of blessings I hope the new year has in store for you.
On a personal note, I hope for nothing more than better health, as long bouts of illness kept me from my desk and the coverage of European baseball for long periods this year. This explains why mister-baseball.com was largely quiet as 2022 came to a close, and why the site’s overall coverage compared to 2021 fell, with just shy of 140 articles published. (The silver lining was that activity increased considerably on Facebook, with reader engagement increasing notably as well.)
In short: so much more could have been written this year, with so many more players, coaches, and clubs deserving the site’s attention.
That said, the year was not lost entirely. The highlight of 2022 was certainly being in attendance at the U18 European championship group play in beautiful Hluboka nad Vltavou, Czechia, and watching from afar as Czechia qualified for this year’s World Baseball Classic.
Fortunately, I get to do it all over again in 2023. The passion to cover European baseball remains stronger than ever, especially with 2023 promising, among other things, the aforementioned World Baseball Classic in March and the European Championship in the fall.
Check back often for our coverage of those events and others in 2023.
Happy New Year!
Francisco Barreto
Director & Writer
mister-baseball.com