By World Baseball Softball Confederation, www.wbsc.org
Prague, Czech Republic. On 12–13 May Prague saw another two milestones events for the development of Baseball5. WBSC and the Czech Baseball Federation hosted the Cuban national team, who stretched its schedule to Czech Republic.
Over the weekend WBSC held a 2-day theoretical and practical seminar where 17 coaches representing 11 European National Federations learned details of WBSC Baseball5.
The theory focused on the characteristics of the new urban street game, its genesis process, and WBSC’s plans for the future. The practice session was done in collaboration with the Cuban national team and RunTheBases (RTB), a NGO based in Los Angeles (USA) that aims to address gender inequality by teaching life skills through sport, RTB has already embraced the Baseball5 format in its programmes.
On Sunday afternoon there was a Baseball5 friendly mixed tournament between two teams formed by Czech national team players and the Cuban national team. The Czech show some defensive strength by being able to close several innings without conceding any run to Cuba.
President of the Czech Baseball Federation, Petr Ditrich, co-host of the event commented “The clinic was very successful, the WBSC invited 10 countries and actually 12 countries attended – all invited and two more, who have learned about it. This certainly indicates the interest and attractiveness of this event.The participants were well attended, the Cuban team was in the lessons, the trainer had a lot of experience and the weather was beautiful. In addition to the certificates, they all took great enthusiasm. It was interesting for us to organise a second such important event after the umpires clinic. For us, it was a valuable experience to learn how to build a field, gain knowledge of game practice and rules”.
The Cubans closed their first European tour undefeated beating also Czech Republic after having defeated France and Italy earlier this week in Rome.