POSTED: May 28th 2009
NewsUpdate
Swedes aim at Baseball World Cup with 2016 Olympic bid in mind
KEIR RADNEDGE & LAURA WALDEN / Sports Features Communications
TAMPA: When it comes to individual dedication and commitment, way above and beyond the normal call of sporting duty, baseball’s European outposts are setting an impressive example.
SportsFeatures.com caught up with the team training at Disney's Wide World of Sports in Florida for more insight on the challenges and commitment to the game.
Extremes of climate, temperature and summer/winter variations of sunlight test the ingenuity and passion of players in countries from Italy to the Czech Republic to Sweden.
The Swedish roster which will compete at the Baseball World Cup in September have just completed a two-week swing through Florida and Wisconsin which included games against spring training MLB outfits and has proved crucial in terms of both experience and morale.
These are not million-dollar superstars who strut their stuff on a national stage. Quite the reverse, many of these guys manage their baseball careers on their own dime and purely for the "love of the game”.
General manager Ulf Steinvall says: “Our guys all have to fit in their baseball between the demands of their day jobs. We have people from marketing, construction workers, and insurance salesmen. Then they have to train in the evenings and their spare time.
“We understand all that. We understand there are other priorities in their lives. But we have also made it clear how important the World Cup is to baseball – and how important it is that we grow the game in Europe to try to help get it back into the Olympic Games.
“It’s important not only for the profile and promotion of the sport but for the funding available if you are in the Olympics.”
IBAF President, Dr. Harvey Schiller, commends the national organizations, “The efforts that our federations are making to grow the sport at the grassroots level, as well as all the time our partners are putting in to help us tell our story, are being positively reflected in our growth globally.”
“We are especially pleased with the growth that we are seeing in Europe leading up to this September’s World Cup. It is a very exciting time to be involved in the sport.”
2016 Olympic Programme bid
Baseball is one of seven sports – along with golf, karate, roller sports, rugby union, softball and squash - vying for the likely two slots on which the International Olympic Committee will vote in Copenhagen in October.
Steinvall says: “We all found it hard to believe that baseball ever lost its place in the Games. It’s a big sport. It’s followed all over the world and it’s played all over the world – and our people commit themselves in just the sort of way which addresses what the Olympic movement is all about.”
One of those factors is climatic.
“Where I come from,” says Steinvall, “we have reasonable air temperatures for only four months, maybe five in good year. Can you imagine playing baseball at zero degrees and with snow in the air? That’s what the guys have to do at the end of our season but they do it willingly and happily and they never complain because they love this sport so much.”
The Netherlands rank as No1 in Europe followed with Italy with Sweden being among the top six. This was one of the key reasons that the country was chosen as one of the seven European host countries of the first round of the Baseball World Cup, along with the Czech Republic, Spain, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Netherlands and Italy.
European players on the rise
Recent IBAF stats show that over 40 players from no less than nine European countries (England, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and France) are currently playing in the North American major and minor leagues - the highest number ever.
Major League Baseball is also focusing on the continent and recently completed its European Academy tryouts in six countries, and will be working with the Confederation of European Baseball and IBAF to conduct coaching and player clinics in ten countries (Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) throughout the rest of the summer and early fall and into 2010.
Swedish players are nationals
One extra reason for Steinvall’s pride is that Sweden use comparatively few double-passport players.
One of those is veteran short stop Rick Reimer now 38 and in his 20th year in the national team roster. He has travelled the world playing baseball as far afield as South Africa, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Reimer says: “I realised when I was growing up in Sweden that if you had any ambitions for international sport – to meet different people, see different places – then one of the growing sports was the best option. But if you want to be any good at this game you have to find places to play all the year round. Playing four or five months a year just in Sweden is not enough.”
That approach was echoed by pitcher Nick Soubiea with an American father and Swedish mother. He was one of the Swedish players most inspired by the opportunity to play against US teams in their winter training programmes.
He said: “I just love baseball and the chance to play at international level, in a World Cup, even one day I hope in the Olympics, is amazing. I know I have a long way to go. Just seeing at close quarters the speed and arm strength of the pitchers of the teams we’ve played has been eye-opening.
“But, like all of us, this trip has shown us the sort of standards we need to work to try to reach. That’s one of the reasons I want to play here full-time.”
Players are their own sponsors
While the Swedish federation accepts the players’ employment demands, it is serious about increasing its status within the European game through the World Cup. The leading players were left in no doubt that they needed to clear holiday time for not only the World Cup but also for the Florida training trip – which they paid to attend out of their own pockets.
The bonus was finding a former World Series pitcher Dennis Cook waiting to welcome them and provide the benefit of his 14 years’ experience in Major League Baseball.
Steinvall said: “I found a message on my phone one day from a Dennis Cook. I knew his name, of course, but I thought it was a joke, wind-up. Then, when I rang him back, I found out it was really him.
“He had a Swedish grandmother, had looked up Swedish baseball on the internet and found my name and number. We talked and he volunteered to fly down when we came over to help us out. It’s been quite inspiring.”
Cook has no doubt he made the right decision and travelled from hometown Austin, Texas over to the training grounds in Florida with his two sons in tow to lend a hand.
He says: “Obviously these guys do not get the opportunity to play virtually all year round and that makes a difference. But their enthusiasm, commitment and attitude is outstanding. Hopefully I can help a little and that will make a difference in the World Cup.”
Not only in the World Cup. Cook, Steinvall and the entire roster want to work to raise the profile of not only Swedish but European baseball this summer so that the IOC is in no doubt, come October, that baseball should be back on board.
Picture (above right): (L to R) Tomas Börjes and Dennis Cook who came all the way from Austin to support the team / Image: lake images
Keywords · Baseball · IBAF · Harvey Schiller · Ulf Steinvall · Dennis Cook
For more information contact:
Laura Walden ()
All original materials contained in this section are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Sports Features Communications, Inc the owner of that content. It is prohibited to alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
