Russians make pitch at American sport

Press, 28 June 1989, Page 32

Russians make pitch at American sport

New York The Russians came, they saw, they lost. More importantly, they learned a lot about baseball on a recent tour of the United States where they were defeated in all 10 games against college teams.

“We came here to learn,” said the Soviet coach, Aleksandr Adatov, after his team was crushed, 21-1, by the U.S. Navy Academy’s secondstring combination.

“This is the motherland of baseball and we dont presume to come here to beat these guys.

“If we win, that’s wonderful, but our mission is to learn how to play baseball from the Americans,” added the former ice hockey coach. His 20-man squad consisted mainly of hockey and water polo players with the upper-body strength to become hitters. Most of his pitchers were javelin throwers.

By 1992, when the sport known as America’s national pastime becomes a medal event in the Barcelona

By

STEVE JAMES,

of Reuters

Olympics, the Soviet Union hopes to be good enough to take part. By 1996, it aims to be in contention for the gold. If the Soviet players learn baseball as quickly as they picked up ice hockey, the Americans and other traditional baseball-playing countries like Cuba, Mexico, Japan and South Korea could soon be looking over their shoulders.

Ice hockey was only organised in the Soviet Union in 1946. But since first competing at international level in the early 1950 s the Russians have dominated the sport which was previously considered a North American preserve. The world championship in Stockholm last April was their twenty-first since 1954. Now the Russians are making a run at another all-American sport and, appropriately encouraged by the new era of “glasnost” in superpower relations, the

communist authorities who run the Soviet sports federation are turning to capitalist methods to learn the game.

They contacted an American sports promotion company to help develop baseball through commercial sponsorship. As a result, not only do Soviet players have the chance to tour the United States to learn the basics, but bat manufacturers like the famous Louisville Slugger company hope that if the game takes off in the Soviet Union, a whole new market will open up for their products. Louisville Slugger and Wilson, which manufactures baseball gloves, both sponsored the Soviet tour.

“One of the most difficult things in the Soviet Union is getting baseballs,” said Drew Mearns, president of Heritage Sports, of Cincinnati. He said that under terms of his company’s

10-year deal with the Soviet sports federation, American firms will supply a certain amount of balls, bats, uniforms and other equipment. In return, Heritage Sports has organised a schedule of tours and competitions aimed at bringing the Russians up to a level at which they can compete in Olympic baseball. “They have definitely improved,” Mr Mearns said of the Soviet players. “The hardest thing is pitching, they get tired,” he said. “They are also too rigid and stiff because they do not know the game.”

“We have no baseball culture yet,” said the assistant-coach, Viktor Pyanych. “What we have to do is teach the kids at eight and 10 how to play. And then in 10 years, we’ll be a threat, you’ll see.”

Just how far they have to go was evident in their first game when Adatov shouted as his team was fielding: “Throw to second (base), not first. Second is the one in the middle.”