I must apologize, dear reader, again, for not writing lately. I know you wake each morning, in a panic, and stumble from bed, naked, drunk, to read a new blog post. And most mornings, I fail you, I am not there, my absence rushes in. You swipe at the emptiness in front of you, gasping for breathe, wondering, where is he, WHERE? – With goats? Yes. The elderly? Yes, usually. But this time, I was in the Dark and Magical Land of Prague, home to the worlds largest community of Orthodox Vampires. You see, it was time for the 2014 Confederation of European Baseball Annual Congress. All the Kings and Queens of European Baseball united in one place, battling for baseball supremacy of the continent. Power. Politics. We had important issues to vote on, decisions to make, chicken or fish, where will next year’s Congress be held. I am glad to report I survived the glare of a thousand gargoyles and made it through the meetings so that today, I do not fail you, today, I deliver, today, I write. Using only the experimental technology known as words, and youtube, of course, Ladies and Geetles, I humbly, dutifully present to you another blog post, on this, the Most Important Blog of All Time.
2014 CEB Congress
In Prague, we met our opponents for upcoming competitions. This summer, this July, to be specific, we, THE ISRAEL NATIONAL TEAM, will play in the European Championships “C Pool” in Ljubljana, Slovenia. A total of 8 teams will compete. 2 of the 8 teams will move up to play in next summers “B Pool”, and the winner of the B Pool will play with the Best in Europe in the 2016 A Pool. The other teams in the C Pool are; Latvia, Romania, Noway, Finland, Ireland, Hungary, and, of course, our hosts, Slovenia. Being the KING OF ALL JEWISH BASEBALL, and leader of the Most Powerful Baseball Organization in the World, the Israel Association of Baseball, I thought I should do some research. Here is what I found. Enjoy. A look into our world, the world of international baseball.
Enjoy a well played game in Latvia to the soft sounds of Metallica.
Moving on, a video from Baseball in Romania’s Facebook Page. These teams love metal.
Norway’s Opening of their Baseball Hall of Fame.
Finland’s own version of baseball. What is this!!! The best head-first slides I have ever seen, and there are 20,000 fans. Horrifying.
A well-done story about baseball in Ireland…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1an6wPCWWM
Baseball in Hungary – nice little ballpark.
A single pitch is thrown in Slovenia, the pitch heard ’round the world as it’s come to be known, a come-backer, out at 1st. Base runner at 1st not sure what to do…
So it appears we will be competing against Romanian Metal Heads, Hungarian Missionaries, and some of the Greatest Athletes in Finland playing a sport called baseball that is not baseball. Winner takes all. In defense of the other teams, we do not have even as robust an internet presence as they, that is, besides my instructional videos, which are admittedly cardboard boxes of videography. And in the end, they are not “the other teams” at all. As the saying goes, all is fair in love and international baseball. We are one team, playing the same game, fighting the same bizarre battles in Norway, or Portugal, or Israel, one tribe of weirdos, baseball players, spread out over Europe, the diaspora, to be reunited for a brief moment this summer for the Greatest, Bloodiest Battle of Them All, The European Championship C Pool. See you in Ljubjana.