Baseball in Belarus
Baseball is an unusual obsession in this part of the world, where soccer is the game of choice. Though the Belarus National Baseball Association was founded in 1988, only four teams compete in the major league. Its chairman, Aleksandr Sechko, became interested in the game during the perestroika years, when the Soviet Union was both opening up to the world and unraveling from within. In Skidziel, a school teacher named Aleksandr Furman caught the bug from Sechko after meeting him in Misnk and decided to drop volleyball courses at his school in Skidziel in favor of baseball. Aleksandr Matveev, who plays for the Sugar Storm and teaches youth baseball, recalls how Furman showed up to a local field one day in the 1990s with a trunk full of bats and balls. From then on, Matveev was hooked, and baseball became the sport of choice for kids in Skidziel. In this remote place, baseball serves both as a window to the West and as a reason for hometown pride.
Baseball in Belarus is seeing growing interest and teams are beginning to compete in nearby countries, such as Ukraine and Lithuania. The reclusive former Soviet republic has opened up slightly in recent years, as the government tries to mend relations with the West while its neighbor and main financial backer, Russia, faces an economic crisis and becomes increasingly belligerent in Eastern Europe. Yuri Shtro, the coach of the Sugar Storm, says the sport sometimes attracts as many as 40 people in the town of about 10,500. All teams receive no salaries and rely on small donations from the patron of team to buy uniforms. Matveev and Shtro credit the team’s strength to the love of the game in Skidziel. A few days before the game, it was announced that baseball would be included in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Players here hope they will be among those selected to compete if Belarus fields a team. After all, Sugar Storm won the Belarus national championship in 2011.
Source Link: http://roadsandkingdoms.com/
Well, it’s great that they try to develop sport. But I find it kind of useless. I mean it is well- known that USA is the absolute best country in the game. There is no doubt about it. However, baseball has seen a huge international boom recently and several other countries are genuinely competitive now. Like Ukraine for example. Though the US is still heads and shoulders above the rest. Team USA baseball would be much more dominant than that due to pure balance and depths. Any team can beat any other team in a single baseball game. But in a serious best of 7 series I don’t see anybody coming close to beating a US team. So I think it took ages before baseball players reached the same high level as Americans do.