In the early hours of Sunday morning European time, the Netherlands defeated Cuba 2-1 in Panama to win the Baseball World Cup for the first time. 

Technically this is the second time a European team has won the event, as the records show that the inaugural staging of it in 1938 was won by Great Britain. 

However, and without wishing to downplay the achievement of that team, the 1938 version was simply a series between Great Britain (actually England) and a U.S. Olympic team. 

The England team won the series 4-1 and the International Baseball Federation decided to crown the team as the first World Amateur Champions after the event, as explained in the excellent ‘History of the Great Britain Team’ available as a pdf on the Project COBB website.

The Netherlands’ triumph is therefore the first time that a European team has won the World Cup in its format as a truly international competition. 

Cuba are, of course, the great powerhouse of international baseball.  They have won the World Cup 25 times and this was their twelfth consecutive appearance in the final.  After a run of nine straight titles, the Cuban team entered the 2011 final having been runners-up in the previous two (in 2007 and 2009) to the United States. 

With the Americans having to settle for a bronze medal game against Canada this time around, the Cubans may have felt that the path was clear for them to regain their crown once they reached the final.  However, the Netherlands had defeated Cuba 4-1 two days prior to the final and they proved that result was no fluke second time around. 

Rob Cordemans has been considered for several years now to be arguably the best pitcher on the European baseball scene.  I was fortunate enough to watch him flirt with a no-hitter in Rotterdam back in 2009 and he was on similar form against Cuba. 

Cordemans gave up only two hits and one run over 7.1 innings, combining with Juan Carlos Sulbaran and David Bergman in relief to ensure that the two runs the Netherlands scored in the bottom of the fourth inning were the only ones they needed to win the game.

The Netherlands’ tournament success is a tremendous achievement.  It follows up their impressive showing in the 2009 World Baseball Classic where they shocked a star-studded Dominican Republic team twice and gained many plaudits from a North American audience that generally pays little attention to baseball outside the Major and Minor League system.

Since the 2009 WBC, the Netherlands have lost their title as the European Champions.  They won the European Baseball Championships five times in a row between 1999 and 2007, but were defeated 8-4 in the 2010 final by Italy.

Italy and the Netherlands have long been the two dominant countries in European baseball and as a consequence there is a fierce rivalry between the pair.  The Italians have been able to bask in the glory of their 2010 triumph recently and Italian baseball gained a significant publicity boost when Alex Liddi, an Italian national who was signed as a 16 year old by the Seattle Mariners in 2005, was promoted to the Major Leagues this season.  

You can be sure that the Dutch will see their World Cup triumph as a reminder to all that they are still the preeminent force in European baseball.  That is something they will be keen to demonstrate next year when they look to regain their European Championship crown on home soil.

The Dutch will be hosting the European Baseball Championships in September 2012 and the fact that they will enter the event as the reigning World Cup winners is a great testament to the calibre of ballplayers that will be on show. 

If you needed an extra incentive to consider making a trip over the North Sea next year for the tournament, getting the chance to watch the World Cup winners is as an appealing one as you can imagine.  Add in their rivalry with the reigning European Champions and the presence of Great Britain and it should be an event well worth attending.

Aeden McQueary (GB national team archive, courtesy of www.catchthefever.de)

In the first of two victories against the host nation in a successful Euro qualifier campaign in Tel Aviv, Israel, ex-NBL player Aeden McQueary notched up 15 strike-outs for Great Britain. According to available records, this is the second highest known total by a GB player. A full list is below, headed by British Baseball Hall of Famer, Ross Kendrick, and featuring another Hall of Fame inductee, Gavin Marshall.

1. 1938, World Championship — Ross Kendrick struck out 16 in 9.0 innings in Game 1 against the USA.
2. 2011, Euro Qualifying Pool — Aeden McQueary struck out 15 in 7.0 innings against Israel.
3. 1967, Euro A-Pool — Terry Warner struck out 14 in 9.0 innings against Sweden.
4. 1996, Euro B-Pool — Pete Arthur struck out 13 in 6.1 innings against Slovakia.
5. 1938, World Championship — Ross Kendrick struck out 12 in 9.0 innings in Game 4 against the USA.
6. 1988, Euro B-Pool — Brian Thurston struck out 12 in 9.0 innings against Sweden.
7. 1994, Euro B-Pool — Martyn Dutton struck out 11 in 6.0 innings against Norway.
8. 1965, exhibition against The Netherlands — Wally O’Neil struck out 11 in 9.0 innings.
9. 1999, Euro A-Pool — Gavin Marshall struck out 11 in 9.0 innings against Croatia.

It is possible that there should be other entries on the list from among the following high full-tournament strike-out totals, but game-by-game breakdowns are unavailable:

• 1992, Euro B-Pool — Brian Thurston had 28 Ks in 23.0 innings.
• 1989, Euro A-Pool — Brian Thurston had 25 Ks in 23.1 innings.
• 1995, Euro B-Pool — Gavin Marshall had 22 Ks in 19.0 innings.
• 1991, Euro A-Pool — Brian Thurston had 20 Ks in 17.0 innings.

The rankings are produced by BBC Five Live Sports Extra presenter Josh Chetwynd.  Josh, of course, is a former Great Britain player and British baseball league veteran and his detailed ranking system is now in its fourth year. 

The 2010 National Baseball League champions, the Richmond Flames, are British baseball’s highest entrant at number 30, with Bracknell Blazers following in at 32.  The British pair are separated by MGPU S.Y.O.S. Moscow, which goes to show just how wide-ranging the rankings are.

Comparing teams over different leagues of varying standards is not an exact science and that’s fully acknowledged each time the revised rankings are published:

“The combination of country strength and individual team performance is intended to give a snapshot of European club play for a single year. These rankings do not attempt to offer a historic comparison of clubs and do not assert that a team ranked higher than another is a “better” team. Rather, a combination of performance and league strength reflects the ordering. We recognize that these rankings stir debate. In part, that’s their very purpose. We do not claim this list to be definitive”.

These rankings are always a fascinating read and are a great way to introduce MLB fans to the top teams in European baseball.  Well worth taking a look at.

Baseball in Europe is Josh Chetywnd’s second book on baseball and his first solo effort, following on from British Baseball and the West Ham Club (reviewed here), a book that he co-authored with Brian A Belton.

British Baseball and the West Ham Club provided a history of unparalleled detail for several areas of British baseball, while offering a much briefer overview of other aspects. This was in part down to some of Chetwynd’s central interests lying in the areas that received the main focus, and in part due to the scarcity of information on certain areas simply not permitting a thorough history to be written. The result was a truly fascinating and sorely needed book, but one that may have left some readers hungry for more information on certain parts of British baseball’s history. Of course, a book providing a consistent thoroughness for the whole of Britain’s baseball history was neither Chetwynd’s intention nor a realistic possibility. 

With Baseball in Europe, the reader gets the impression of an even more complete work, and one in which each area of Europe’s baseball history (i.e. each country) receives the proportionate attention it deserves. So the dominant forces of European baseball such as The Netherlands and Italy receive two dozen pages, while a minnow like Romania is given two paragraphs.

It is incredibly difficult to find authoritative English-language information on the history of baseball in any European country, so by knitting the histories together Chetwynd provides a book that serves as an invaluable reference resource. The usefulness of the book as a reference resource is enhanced further through the inclusion of a wealth of photographs and the provision of a range of fascinating appendices (as was the case in British Baseball and the West Ham Club). These include reviews of European Championships, details of European club tournaments, and lists of country-by-country national champions and European-born Major Leaguers.

While the book’s usefulness as a reference resource should not be underestimated, it serves equally as a fine read. The carefully researched historical facts are supplemented with wonderful anecdotes that Chetwynd picked up from talking to baseball authorities throughout Europe. Forty European nations are covered in total, and it is arguably the sections on the minnows where the most interesting anecdotes of all can be found.

Finally, the chapter on Great Britain has been fine-tuned from Chetwynd’s previous writing on our own country’s baseball history, and, for me, now represents the foremost summary of the subject available.

In short: buy it, enjoy reading it from cover to cover, and then find it a space on your most easily accessible bookshelf.

Have you read “Baseball in Europe”? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

If you’re a baseball fan in the UK, visiting Holland is the easiest way to watch some high quality ballgames without travelling all the way to the States.  There are several decent ballparks in the Netherlands, such as those in Amsterdam and Haarlem, but the Neptunus Family Stadium in Rotterdam is arguably the best of the lot.  Indeed, it may well be the best ballpark in Europe. 

Joe and I were extremely impressed by the set-up during our recent road trip to watch some games there at the World Port Tournament (WPT).  Hopefully one day there will be a similar ballpark in the UK, but until then you definitely need to start planning your own trip to Rotterdam.

(Note: The photos were taken an hour or so before first pitch, hence the relative lack of a crowd!) 

Rotterdam: the journey, hotels and the city

Let’s start with a few basic points about the city itself.  Rotterdam is very easy to get to from the UK. Transavia runs cheap flights direct to Rotterdam Airport via London Luton and you are in the air for less than forty minutes. Alternatively you could fly to Amsterdam via various UK airports. The train from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to Rotterdam takes approximately forty-five minutes. 

If you’d prefer not to fly, there’s a direct overnight ferry to Rotterdam from Hull or a ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland, from which you can get a direct train to Rotterdam that takes approximately thirty minutes.

There are many different hotel options depending on your budget and exactly whereabouts you want to stay, particularly within the heart of the city.  If you want to stay close to the ballpark, the new Domina Hotel is where the visiting players are staying for the World Port Tournament (and is the place from which Cuba’s Arolbis Chapman famously made his exit for the Majors).

The city is currently undergoing a fair amount of building work around the Central Station, but that doesn’t detract from the area too much.  There are plenty of places to wander around as well as many shops and restaurants/bars where you can enjoy a drink or a bite to eat.  Most of the locals speak at least some English, so there isn’t much of a language barrier apart from getting used to referring to the game as honkbal.

If you’ve never been to Holland before, it’s worth noting that their love of bicycles is not a misleading stereotype.  I doubt there are many people in Rotterdam who don’t have a bike judging by the number we saw travelling along (and they’re even more common in Amsterdam). 

A lot of the roads/pavements have a separate red cycling path (also used by people on mopeds) and you would be wise to keep out of them when walking along.  The general rule seems to be that, whether in the red cycling area or not, bikes take precedence over cars and pedestrians.  Don’t expect someone on a bike to stop for you, even if the crossing is telling you it’s safe to leave the pavement!  You also need to keep an eye out for the trams.

Ballpark basics

The Neptunus Family Stadium, or the Neptunus Familiestadion as it’s spelt in Dutch, opened in 1999.  The regular capacity is approximately 2,200 and it can be increased to around 6,000 with additional temporary seating for larger events, such as the WPT. The stadium is home to the Neptunus Rotterdam ballclub, one of the leading teams in the Dutch Major League: the Hoofdklasse.  Dutch ballclubs often take the name of their lead sponsor and Neptunus are therefore currently known as DOOR Neptunus after the DOOR Training and Coaching company.

Getting to the ballpark

The ballpark is a thirty to thirty-five minute walk away from the Central Station.  Alternatively you can take a four/five minute bus journey via the number 38 bus from the Central Station, getting off at the Beukelsweg stop (costing €1.60) before walking the last few minutes to the stadium. 

The ballpark site

You pay at the gate when you get to the ballpark, or show them your e-ticket, and you are then free to walk about the main area around the stadium and into the actual ballpark.  There are no internal concourses in the standard parts of the ballpark, so all facilities (toilets, food stalls etc) are located in the surrounding area. For the WPT, this was filled with a variety of marquees. 

There were several selling baseball merchandise, ranging from jerseys/caps for the international teams to lots of MLB-related goodies.  General baseball equipment such as bats, gloves and balls could also be purchased by kids or adults who got the urge to start playing after watching a game. 

Food was available from a large marquee selling a wide variety of different dishes and there was a separate stall serving up fish-based offerings (herring being a Dutch favourite). Although the menus were in Dutch, you could generally tell what was on offer and the staff were happy to help if you were not sure.  The main word you will probably need is ‘patat’, which is Dutch for chips/french fries (cultural point: if you want to eat like a local, you’ll need to drown your patat in mayo). Prices for the food and drink matched the general experience at most sporting venues or public events: a little high but not outrageous.

A music stage provided additional entertainment (particularly entertaining one day when the power went off just as the bloke was half-way through the first verse of Amarillo) and various activities were available for kids on the multi-purpose football pitch.

Free A4 print-outs of the starting lineups were handed out 30-40 minutes prior to first pitch and free scorecards were also available.  However, they were charging 50 cents to use the toilets!

The stadium

From the surrounding area, you simply walk up some stairs to get onto the main concourse and to see the diamond for the first time.  The concourse runs along the middle of the stand, so that there are seats below the concourse and then seats above it. 

The permanent seating runs from the first base bag to the third base bag, with temporary seating being erected down the lines for bigger events (such as the WPT). 

A row of corporate boxes runs along the top of the stadium and part of the upper section behind home plate is a dedicated media area.  The area at ground level directly behind home plate is also given over to the press, photographers and scouts.

All seats were unreserved for the WPT and I didn’t notice any seat/row numbers so this is probably the way it always works.  That means it’s worth getting to your spot early if there’s a large group of you that wants to sit together or if you want to get one of the best seats.  However, ‘best seats’ is a bit meaningless in this context as all seats provide a fantastic view (all would be considered premium seating at a Major League ballpark, for example).

There is no roof over the main seating, so take an umbrella or a waterproof top if some rain is forecast.  As there are no internal concourses, the only place to shelter from a downpour would be in any external marquees that had been erected.

During the game

The in-game experience at the Neputnus Family Stadium matches what you would expect to see at a Minor League game in the States.  There are the usual bursts of music when batters step up to the plate, as well as the odd comedy sound effect when a ball gets fouled-off over the stand.  There were a few Dutch standards that the locals merrily sang along to and, of course, we all joined in with ‘Take me out to the Ballgame’ during the seventh inning stretch.  A mascot provided entertainment in between some of the innings and spent the rest of the time causing havoc in the stands, gleefully cheered on by the kids chasing after him.

There is a basic scoreboard in left-field that provides all of the standard details (score, inning and number of outs, the plate appearance count and details of the current batter).  Scoring details are normally flashed across the scoreboard as well (e.g. “double”, “ERROR e6″, “Wild Pitch” etc), which comes in useful as all of the comments over the public address system are (unsurprisingly) in Dutch.  In some cases they simply use the American/British baseball term anyway (i.e. “strikeout”), but there are exceptions to this.  A pitching change, for example, is clearly shown on the scoreboard whereas you might not fully catch was has happened if you are just relying on the commentary.

Our experience

Joe and I attended four games and they were all good quality contests.  Decent crowds were on hand, especially for the games involving the Netherlands, and they created an enjoyable atmosphere.  There were even a few visiting fans in the ballpark, with some Cuban supporters providing percussion to the chants and a smattering of Taiwan supporters cheering on their players.  The crowd was a genuine mixture of young and old, male and female.  An afternoon or evening at the ballpark is a perfect event for a family and there were many in attendance.  It was great to see so many kids walking around with baseball gear on, enjoying the occasion.  That’s exactly how you create baseball fans for life.

We were a little unlucky on our trip with the amount of games we ended up watching.  Originally two games were scheduled for every day of the tournament (except for the final day), but the late no-show from the USA meant that a new schedule was put in place.  Consequently only one game per day was scheduled for two of the days we were there and one of those (Cuba versus Taiwan on Tuesday) was postponed due to rain.

Apart from that slight disappointment, it was a great trip and it left me with two resolutions: 1) to return to Rotterdam in the future, and 2) to start the campaign to build a similar ballpark in the UK.  There are lots of barriers in place for the second point, not least financial, but there is no reason why a place as big as the UK cannot have at least one decent ballpark. 

As for the first point, I’ll definitely be heading back to the Neptunus Family Stadium when I can.  Why not make the trip yourself?

Danesi Caffe’ Nettuno confirmed their position as the top team in the continent by defending their title with a tense win against Fortitudo Bologna, while Corendon Kinheim won the battle of the Netherlands in the bronze medal game against L&D Amsterdam Pirates. 

Saturday’s games

The games on Saturday matched the two Italian teams against the two Dutch teams.  Fortitudo Bologna and Danesi Caffe Nettuno upheld Italian honour by relegating the Dutch to the bronze medal game. 

Bologna qualified for the final by defeating L&D Amsterdam 6-0. Their victory was built on a strong pitching performance by starter Jesus Matos.  He pitched eight scoreless innings, allowing just five base runners (3 hits, 1 walk, 1 HBP) while striking out eight. Bologna’s batters backed their pitcher by taking a 2-0 lead in the second inning.  Catcher Juan Pablo Angrisano singled in a run and was later brought home via a Daniele Frignani sacrifice fly. 

Amsterdam’s Australian starting pitcher, Adam Blackley, recovered from that setback, but the Pirates were unable to make any impact against the impressive Matos.  Bologna tacked on four insurance runs in the final two innings to seal a comfortable victory.

The second semi-final between Danesi Caffe Nettuno and Corendon Kinheim was a much closer affair.  The two starting pitchers, Carlos Richetti and David Bergman, traded zeroes through the first five innings before the defending champions Nettuno broke the deadlock in the top of the sixth.  The two Mazzanti’s, Giuseppe and Leonardo, both drove in a run. Giuseppe doubled in centre fielder Juan Camilo, while Leonardo took a curveball back up the middle for a single to plate Giuseppe.

With a lead to play with, Richetti appeared ready to hammer home Nettuno’s advantage in the bottom of the inning when he struck out Rombley and Rennick after the lead-off hitter Draijer had reached on an error.  However, Kinheim launched an incredible fight back, capped off by a bases loaded triple by Rafael Jozefa that gave the Dutch team a 4-2 lead.

Yet Nettuno had fought hard in 2008 to win the inaugural competition and they were not about to give up their crown lightly.  They responded immediately by scoring four runs in the top of the seventh and Giovanni Carrara pitched 3.1 shutout innings in relief to secure a 6-4 win.

Bronze medal game

Corendon Kinheim came from behind to defeat L & D Amsterdam 3-1 in a ten-inning game that lasted less than two hours.  Danny Rombley was the hero for Kinheim, bringing in the tying run in the eighth inning on a sacrifice fly and then hitting a two-run homer in extra innings.

There was a danger that the game for third place would turn into little more than a friendly knockabout.  Both sides’ batters were swinging early in the count and there was a relaxed atmosphere between two teams who know each other well from the Dutch Hoofdklasse.  The opposing teams shared plenty of smiles at first, but as the game wore on their competitive nature came to the fore.

Amsterdam took a 1-0 lead in the third inning after an error by second baseman Cremer kept the inning alive with two outs.  Rombley’s eighth-inning sacrifice made sure that play wasn’t decisive, but an error by Amsterdam’s shortstop Marvin Bleij, who saw a groundball keep low under his glove, proved to be the turning point.  The mistake allowed the fresh-faced Kevin Weijgertse to reach base to lead off the tenth.  Reliever Kenneth Berkenvosch got the next two batters out, before Rombley stepped up to the plate and hit what turned out to be the game-winning runs.

The final

The tournament deserved an exciting final and the two Italian teams did not disappoint.  Nettuno edged the game 1-0, but the low score reflected the fact that these were two closely matched teams. 

Such games are normally decided by a moment of brilliance or a mistake.  Unfortunately for Bologna, it was an error by their catcher Matthew Stocco that proved to be their downfall.  Nettuno’s Giuseppe Mazzanti led off the second inning with a walk and he thought about heading to second base during the next at-bat when a pitch got away from  Stocco.  The catcher pounced on the ball and would have picked Mazzanti off at first if his throw had reached the first baseman’s glove. 

Instead, the ball sailed down the right-field line, allowing the base runner to advance all the way to third.  Manuel Gasparri singled Mazzanti home for an unearned run that would end up being the only time home plate was crossed in the game.

Bologna had chances to score some runs of their own, most notably during the first two innings when they left men stranded on the corners both times.  Nettuno’s starting pitcher Jeff Farnsworth soon settled into the game after those early scares and he struck out fourteen Bologna batters during his eight innings of work.  Several times he got ahead of the batter with a well-located fastball for a strike on the outside corner and then made them swing through his curveball.   

Bologna tried to rally in the bottom of the ninth and it was Stocco who led the charge, desperate to atone for his earlier error.  He started the inning with a double that chased Farnsworth from the game.  Carlos Pezzullo was summoned from the bullpen to save the game and he did just that, striking out Luca Breveglieri on three pitches to finish with a flourish.

Tournament coverage

The final was broadcast off tape on Eurosport2 in an abbreviated form on Monday evening and there will be repeat performances later in the week.  It was great to see European baseball represented on the channel and hopefully this will become a more regular occurrence.

The tournament organizers also utilised the Livestream.com system to broadcast the tournament online. 

As you would expect from a free system, it wasn’t always perfect.  The picture went through phases were it seemed to buffer every five seconds or so, yet for the majority of the time it worked well.  It was good to hear Team GB player Ian Young doing some co-commentary in the Bologna-Amsterdam game, while the Kinheim-Nettuno game gave us the delight of listening to foreign commentary sprinkled with the occasional English baseball phrase (‘broken bat’ and ‘foul territory’, for example).

It was definitely an idea worth repeating in the future. Providing free access to the games was a great way to promote European club baseball, not just to the rest of the world but also to the many Europeans who primarily focus on Major League Baseball.

The European Champion Cup Final Four was a success not only for Danesi Caffe’ Nettuno, but also for European baseball more generally.

For full details on the tournament, visit the official website.

The European Champions Cup was launched last year after the Confederation of European Baseball tournaments were reorganized.  The Nettuno baseball club from Italy won the inaugural event and they are looking to defend their title in 2009.   

The competition begins today with the two semi-finals.  L&D Amsterdam Pirates will take on Fortitudo Bologna in the first game at 11.00 BST, while at 18.00 it’s Danesi Caffe’ Nettuno against Corendon Kinheim.  These games are available to watch for free live online via the 2009BaseballWorldCup website and they represent an excellent opportunity for baseball fans to enjoy some European club baseball.

The third-place play-off (10.00 BST) and the final (17.00 BST) will take place tomorrow. It’s not completely clear whether these games will be shown online.  Mister-Baseball.com, the leading European Baseball and Softball website, state in their very useful tournament preview that the semi-finals are available but there is no mention of the Sunday games.  However, the 2009BaseballWorldCup website does promise us that we can “catch all the action live and uninterrupted online”, which strongly suggests that all four games (including the two tomorrow) will be shown.

Hopefully the final will be broadcast online, allowing as many people as possible the chance to see the game. If not, or you unable to watch the live feed, subscribers to Eurosport2 have three chances to catch a repeat. The first comes on Monday evening at 19:15, followed by showings at 14.00 on Friday 26 June and 12.45 on Sunday 27 June. 

It’s fantastic news that Eurosport have decided to support European club baseball in this way.  The game should make for an excellent warm-up before the Baseball World Cup in September, which reportedly is also scheduled to be shown on the channel.

Good luck to the four teams involved.

Back in May, I looked at players from the GB programme who were involved in top-tier baseball leagues in continental Europe this season. Below I present news of some additional players.

Country: The Netherlands
Division: Hoofdklasse
Teams: Eight

Matt McGraw (DOOR Neptunus, 2nd place)
McGraw,who made his GB debut in Belgium last weekend, has been playing catcher, outfielder, and designated hitter for DOOR Neptunus, a historically solid Dutch outift that currently features ex-Major Leaguer Eugène Kingsale in its line-up. There are also two members of the GB programme playing for non-Hoofdklasse teams: Stephen Spragg is pitching for the Euro Stars in the second tier, while Brook Coatsworth is pitching for Olympia Haarlem in the third tier.

Country: Germany
Division: Bundesliga South
Teams: Seven

Raef Hobbs-Brown (Mainz Athletics, 6th place)
Hobbs-Brown has pitched and played at five other positions, appearing most commonly in left field and then at shortstop. Over 67 plate appearances to date he has batted a respectable .281/.368/.373. He has amassed 10.0 innings on the mound across six relief appearances and picked up one win. He has an earned-run average of 6.30.

Country: Croatia
Division: Hrvatskog Baseball Saveza
Teams: Four

Gary Tongue (Zagreb, 2nd place)
Tongue, a starting pitcher, has a 2-1 record and a 2.87 earned-run average. He has struck out nine, walked nine, and given up 12 hits in 15.2 innings.

There are a number of players who have represented Great Britain in recent seasons who are currently playing in continental European top-tier leagues. Below I provide an update on how they are getting on at this early stage of the season, which includes news of a GB player leading the Dutch batting standings.

Country: The Netherlands
Division: Hoofdklasse
Teams: Eight

Aeden McQueary-Ennis (ADO, 7th place)
Aeden has been batting clean-up in recent games as ADO’s designated hitter, and so far this season has accumulated a league-leading .442 batting average to go with a .744 slugging average. His eight doubles puts him joint first in that category. He has also pitched in a few games, amassing 7.17 strike-outs per 9 innings and 1.89 strike-outs per walk, good for 14th and 15th place in those respective categories.

Country: Germany
Division: Bundesliga South
Teams: Seven

Chris Falls (Mannheim Tornados, 3rd place)
Chris has played 13 games at second base and one at catcher. His .986 fielding average at second base in 74 chances puts him second in that category in the division, behind a fellow GB player (see below). He is tied for fifth in the division in runs scored with 18, and is hitting .310/.414/.382.

Richard Klijn (Buchbinder Legionäre, 1st place)
Richard has appeared in two games for the the division-leading team, spending most of his playing time so far with the club’s second-tier team. In six games at shortstop, he has made just one error in 26 chances (for a .962 fielding average), and scored 8 runs (third in the league) and driven in 6 runs (fifth) while batting .278/.389/.480.

Will Lintern (Gauting Indians, 6th place)
Will has caught in all 16 of the Indians’ games and is batting .172/.172/.234. He has been catching for GB team-mate Paul Waterman.

Craig Pycock (Mannheim Tornados, 3rd place)
Playing on the same team as Chris Falls, Craig has played in seven games at third base, six at catcher, and one at second base, and has made two appearances on the mound (10.13 earned-run average). He is batting .275/.294/.413 and has struck out just four times in 64 plate appearances.

Paul Waterman (Gauting Indians, 6th place)
With GB team-mate Will Lintern as catcher, Paul has pitched 44.0 innings (third in the division) and has a 2-5 record. He has an earned-run average of 3.27 (eighth), and has struck out 37 hitters (tied fourth), which gives him ratios of 7.57 per 9 innings (fifth) and 2.47 per walk (also fifth).

Sam Whitehead (Heidenheim Heideköpfe, 3rd place)
Sam is batting .275/.294/.373 from 15 games, all at second base. He is the only second baseman in the south with at least 8 games who has has not made an error (58 chances). From the mound, he has picked up two saves (tied fourth in the division) from three appearances but has an earned-run average of 10.80.

Country: France
Division: Championnat de France – Elite
Teams: Eight

Jason Holowaty (Montigny Cougars, 7th place)
Jason has played in three games at second base and is hitting .125/.250/.300.

Alex Malihoudis (Templiers de Sénart, joint 4th place)
Alex has made six appearances at catcher, three at second base, and one at shortstop and is batting .266/.266/.435 .

Ian Young (Rouen Huskies, 2nd place)
Ian, who was part of the 2008 Templiers de Sénart squad, has moved to the Huskies, who are the defending champions. He has played all of his games so far in the outfield and is hitting an impressive .380/.380/.480.

The news is a welcome source of optimism for the year ahead; however Regensburg is the only venue currently selling tickets.   Little information has been published about the organization of the tournament in recent months and, according to recent reports from Mister-Baseball.com, this lack of progress is causing concern. 

This is felt most keenly in Italy.  Marco Micheli of Baseball.it states that their venues are still to be finalized, less than nine months before the event is scheduled to begin.   Murray Cook, MLB’s field and stadium consultant, highlighted the stadiums at Grosseto and Nettuno as being the best developed during his tour of Europe last October.  Cook stated that “they each still have some things to tweak” and that work is needed on other ballparks in Europe to get them ready for the World Cup.

Cook was sounding positive three months ago, stressing that there was still time to make the necessary improvements.  Micheli’s report states that the two Italian towns have received no communication since the end of last season regarding plans for future work to their ballparks.  The same is true in relation to the plans to build a new stadium in Rome.

While time is not running out just yet, it is definitely counting down quickly.  Good progress needs to be made over the next couple of months to ensure that the local organizers can effectively prepare for the event.

Regensburg is proving to be an honourable exception to the apparent lack of progress elsewhere.  Work has already started to improve their stadium, a process that will see its capacity rise temporarily from 1,400 seats to 11,500.  These seats look set to be filled and the promising ticket sales are partly due to the reasonable prices available to ‘early birds’ who book their tickets before 1 May.  An infield seating ticket for all six games, involving Germany, China, USA and Venezuela, currently will cost you ninety Euros (£83).

The Regensburg organizers have launched an impressive website through which fans can purchase their tickets.  They will be sent out via e-mail and spectators simply need to print out the tickets and take them along to gain entry.  The 2009 Baseball World Cup website does include an e-mail address that you can use to enquire generally about tickets, although they may only be able to provide a limited amount of information outside of the Regensburg details right now.

More news should be forthcoming over the next couple of weeks.  Mister-Baseball reports that the seven European Baseball Federations hosting the World Cup will meet in Frankfurt, Germany on 6 February to talk about their plans for the tournament.  Hopefully Regensburg’s excellent start can be built on by the other countries and we will soon be able to point to similar signs of progress elsewhere.