by John Dobkowski
Under new leadership from the Polish Baseball Association and new head coach Arkadiusz Żurkowski (Gepardy Żory) things will be a little different in Polish baseball. This past weekend 18 players made the trip to Ostrava, Czech Republic to play 3 games against Arrows Juniors, Klasikem Frýdek – Místek (2nd League Czech Republic) and Arrows first team. The trip was an opportunity for first-year coach Arkadiusz to train players and see what he has going into next year’s European Championship Qualifiers Tournament. His assistant coaches on the trip were Michal Lisko (Ostrava Arrows), Martin Kučera (Ostrava Arrows). John Dobkowski (Gauting Indians) was a special advisor as well as a new player on the team. The players who participated with their 2010 club are listed below. Notable missing players for this trip are Marek Deska, Gracjan Kraszewski and Mike Glinka.
Polish Roster in Ostrava:
- Gracjan Bielecki (Stal Kutno)
- Mariusz Blonkowski (Comets Mazowsze)
- Piotr Cedzyński (Stal Kutno)
- John Dobkowski(Gauting Indians – Germany)
- Jakub Garbacz (Gepardy Żory)
- Mariusz Grzanowski (Stal Kutno)
- Rafał Kaliński (Stal Kutno)
- Jakub Kolasiński (Stal Kutno)
- Karol Lapczyk (Gepardy Żory)
- Piotr Mikołajczyk (Stal Kutno)
- Grzegorz Motas (Gepardy Żory)
- Łukasz Nolbrzak (Baseball Wrocław)
- Przemysław Paluch (Silesia Rybnik)
- Mateusz Pniewski (Comets Mazowsze)
- Ariel Rainko (Gepardy Żory)
- Łukasz Snopek (Dęby Osielsko)
- Artur Szymura (Silesia Rybnik)
- Adam Zieliński (Dęby Osielsko)
Results:
Thursday, October 21
Polish National Team – Arrows Juniors 2-9
Friday, October 22
Polish National Team – Klasikem Frýdek – Místek 4-3
Saturday, October 23
Polish National Team – Arrows First Team 10-11
Photos of the matches can be seen here, provided by Tomáš Svach.
Photo: Tomáš Svach