Category Archives: International baseball

News from the European Leagues, International tournaments and the fortunes of the Great Britain National Team

British Baseball Beat: Great Britain begin their 2010 European Championship campaign

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bbbHlsqWe have a mix of domestic and international news this week, as the usual British Baseball Federation action is joined by the start of a major international baseball tournament.

The Senior Great Britain National Team has enjoyed unprecedented success over the last three years: a silver medal finish in the 2007 European Championships and a Second Round appearance in the 2009 World Cup.  With those achievements behind them, Team GB head out on the tournament trail yet again this week for the 2010 European Championships in Germany, with the team’s first game scheduled for Friday.

Great Britain face a significant challenge in repeating their 2007 success but guided by a new Manager, Pat Doyle, and General Manager, Jason Greenberg, you can be certain that the half-hearted, lamentable performance of England’s football team this summer will not be repeated in the ballparks of Stuttgart, Heidenheim and Neuenberg.  The roster for this tournament contains a number of current or former BBF league players alongside British-eligible players intent on representing the country with pride.   Continue reading →

Mister-Baseball interviews Jason Greenberg

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EC2010SmThe European Championship is almost upon, with the opening games taking place on 23 July. 

In the lead-up to the event, the excellent Mister-Baseball.com website has been running a series of interviews with the General Managers of the teams involved. 

The latest is with Team GB’s Jason Greenberg.  Jason discusses his hopes for the tournament, how the level of play in European baseball has changed since the last tournament in 2007 and Great Britain’s pre-tournament plans.

Mister-Baseball is also supplying English content to the official European Championship website.  The English version of the site can be found here.  If you click through to the German version you’ll see that one of the top stories is about the Great Britain roster, noting that three players on the roster (Ted Gieschen, Richard Klijn and Sam Whitehead) currently play in the German leagues and three others (Chris Falls, Will Lintern and Mitch Evans) have done so in the past.

British Baseball Beat: London Tournament, BBF Leagues and Team GB’s EC roster

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bbbHlsqThere were only three British Baseball Federation league contests on Sunday as teams were either taking a break or participating in other events, such as the London International Tournament that took place on Saturday and Sunday in Croydon.

A full report on the London International Tournament is available on the BBF website.  The reigning National Baseball League champions Bracknell Blazers won the main event, defeating the Essex Arrows 21-2 in the final, while PC Wolves from France took the Frank Brady trophy on run difference.  The annual Home Run Derby on Saturday was won by the Mildenhall Bulldogs’ Mike McClure.  Rumours of a Home Run hit-off between McClure and ‘Big Papi’ David Ortiz are unconfirmed.

And completely made up. 

Two of the teams, Latino Stars and Vatos, didn’t show up and unfortunately it looks like that caused a few organizational problems.  Ideas are already being floated to add a similar Midlands-based event to the baseball calendar next year.  Continue reading →

Pat Doyle appointed as Head Coach of the Great Britain Senior National Team

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GbHlSqGreat Britain’s preparations for this summer’s European Championships have been boosted by the appointment of Pat Doyle as the new Head Coach of the Senior National Team. 

Doyle is a highly respected coach who brings a considerable amount of experience to the role.  He has coached in the U.S. college system for over 23 years, been part of the Team USA coaching staff and has served as the Global Coordinator of the Major League Baseball Envoy Programme for the last twelve years.

Doyle takes over from Stephan Rapaglia, who led Team GB to the unprecedented achievements of a silver medal in the 2007 European Championships and a second-round showing in the 2009 IBAF Baseball World Cup.  Rapaglia is a tough act to follow, but he has every confidence that Doyle is the man to take the team forward.

“We are very fortunate to welcome Pat to the GB programme”, said Rapaglia. “Pat is an extremely well-respected coach with a wealth of high-level experience and, frankly, we couldn’t have hoped for a better fit”.

Doyle will now put together his assistant coaching staff for the European Championships, which takes place in Germany between 23 July and 1 August.  Continue reading →

Stephen Fry supports the GB baseball team

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Team GBOver 1.5 million people got a shock on Tuesday when they found out that Great Britain has a successful national baseball team. 

The news was delivered to them courtesy of Stephen Fry via his ever-popular Twitter account.  He was helping out the national cause by making his followers aware of the fundraising efforts currently being led by GB General Manager Jason Greenberg.  One small tweet by Fry was a giant step for the profile of GB’s fundraising campaign. 

Fingers crossed that it has a positive impact.

Further thoughts on the Great Britain national team programme

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GbHlSqThe potential future direction of the Great Britain national team programme is continuing to be discussed as the British Baseball Federation (BBF) Annual General Meeting approaches this Sunday.

As clarified in my recent article, the proposed funding contribution from BBF membership monies to the overall national team budget is less than £5,000.  That’s a small amount in terms of international baseball funding, but it’s a tidy sum in the real world and the people who pay their fees toward it have a right to see that the money is being spent for the benefit of British baseball as a whole.

If the programme should continue in a similar vein to the one at present, what are benefits of the existing set-up and does it have a wider impact above and beyond the impressive recent tournament performances of the senior team?

In particular, what is its impact on the most important part of the development of British baseball: the junior players?  Has there been a noticeable improvement in the coaching on offer? Can having a national team programme of a higher standard act as a competitive catalyst to youngsters, setting the bar that bit higher, driving them on and helping them to ‘be the best they can be’  so that they make a strong GB team on merit; a GB team that we can all be proud of?

To answer some of these questions, I thought it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of some people who have been involved in the Team GB programme, or have seen it from close quarters, from both a senior level and a junior level.

Continue reading →

Further details on the Great Britain national team

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GbHlSqThe importance of the Great Britain national team within British baseball, including the potential benefits of a possible World Baseball Classic spot in 2013, is being argued as the British Baseball Federation (BBF) continues to consider its budget for the coming years.

It is now known that the recent proposals of, and resignations by, Great Britain’s General Manager Alan Smith and Head Coach Stephan Rapaglia were prompted by the BBF Board’s preliminary decision not to meet the funding commitments required to field a competitive national team for the foreseeable future.  Smith and Rapaglia were informed that the proposed 2010 national team budget would not be met and that the final year of Rapaglia’s four-year contract would not be honoured, although both were also informed that the Board wished for them to continue working with Team GB.

Smith and Rapaglia responded by submitting an alternative outline of how the BBF could continue to support the national team.  In this, the only contribution to the national effort from BBF membership money would involve redirecting part of the £5,000 that would be saved by Rapaglia’s removal from a salaried position to the European Championship and the junior team budgets, the latter seen as being a vitally important part of investing in the sport’s future. 

When no formal response was received from the BBF Board, the detailed proposal, referred to as a Statement of Intent, was submitted to the Board to be accepted or rejected, alongside the resignations of Smith and Rapaglia from their posts as of 28 February: the date of the BBF Annual General Meeting.  Continue reading →

2010 NBL expansion and European Championship schedule announced

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BbfLogoJust before we take a break for Christmas, there’s time to pass on some interesting news about both Britain’s domestic league and the senior men’s international team.

An expanded National Baseball League for 2010

We reported two weeks ago that a number of new teams could be added to the British Baseball Federation League system and stated that “it seems likely in one way or another that the creation of new teams will lead to another revamp of the BBF league structure in 2010”.  That’s proved to be correct as the National Baseball League (NBL) is effectively going to increase from five to twelve teams next year.  Continue reading →

Support the Great Britain Women’s Softball team

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We normally focus on baseball here, but this is a very worthy cause to highlight.  As with the men’s national baseball team, the national softball teams are feeling the full effects of the two sports being ousted from the Olympics.  There is no longer any public funding to back their efforts and the women’s fastpitch softball team now finds itself in the same position as the GB baseball team did back in early 2008: they’ve earned the right to go to a major international tournament, but may be denied that place due to lack of funds.  The baseball team was sadly forced to withdraw from the 2008 Final Olympic Qualifying tournament for that very reason.  The following appeal may stop that happening to the women’s fastpitch softball team:

“YOUR ONLINE VOTE CAN HELP THE GREAT BRITAIN WOMEN’S SOFTBALL TEAM GET TO THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!
 
The Great Britain Women’s Fastpitch Softball Team earned a place in the 2010 Softball World Championships by finishing second in European Championships this past summer, the team’s highest-ever European placing.

But the team receives no public funding because softball is no longer an Olympic sport. Players and staff had to pay their own way to compete for their country at the European Championships, but the cost of competing in the World Championships, which will probably be held in North America, is beyond what the players and their families can afford.
 
So the team has entered a British Airways contest called “Great Britons”, where the prize could be 16 desperately-needed free flights that can get the majority of our players and staff to the World Championships. Now the team has been shortlisted along with seven other entries, and the winner will be determined by public vote.

So please go online to http://www.greatbritons.ba.com/shortlists and cast your vote for the GB Women’s Team entry submitted by first base player MORGAN PARKERSON.

Just click on Morgan’s name on the Judges’ Shortlist and then hit the VOTE NOW button under Morgan’s photo. You’ll need to do a quick registration, and then you can vote.
 
And then please get everyone you know and everyone you can reach by way of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc to vote as well!
 
Voting closes on December 21.

Winning this contest could make all the difference between the GB Women’s Softball Team being able to go to the World Championships and having to turn down its place”.

Please consider voting and promoting the cause elsewhere.

2010 European Baseball Championship – schedule announced

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Team GBThe schedule for next year’s European Baseball Championship has just been announced, revealing the task that Great Britain will face in their attempt to follow up an impressive silver-medal showing in 2007.  The tournament will be held in Heidenheim, Neuenburg and Stuttgart, Germany between 23 July and 3 August.

There are twelve entrants in total, split into two groups of six for the first round.  Team GB have been grouped with Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain and Sweden and need a top three finish to progress into the second round.  Italy and Spain would be considered as the two favourites to top the group, with GB and Sweden arguably in a straight battle for the other spot.  Of course, you never know quite how a tournament will play out so writing off Croatia, who Great Britain beat to earn their sole victory in the World Cup in September, and Greece would be dangerous.  However, Stephan Rapaglia’s men should go into the tournament with confidence.  Their 2007 performance showed that they are capable of competing with the best in Europe and while a World Cup win-loss record of 1-9 doesn’t look good on paper, the experience gained in playing the likes of Cuba, Korea, Japan and others will be invaluable for those players who go on to take part in the Euros next year. 

The other first round group contains Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Netherlands and Ukraine.  The Dutch should win the group comfortably, but there will be a good battle for the other two qualifying places.  Germany in particular should be fierce competitors, playing in front of home crowds and with the disappointment of their heart-breaking exit from the World Cup still being keenly felt.

Rumours that Thierry Henry will be France’s catcher are unconfirmed.  

The World Cup first round pool staged in Regensburg was a great success and, although that venue will not be used on this occasion, the Germans can be expected to host an excellent tournament.  Eurosport covered the event in 2007 and it’s very possible that they will be showing a selection of games live for the 2010 tournament as well.

For more info, please visit Mister-Baseball.  For further GB analysis, check out the Great Britain Baseball website.