Pitchers Can’t Find Mark in Yugoslavia

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia —  It may not be accurate to say that enthusiasm for baseball in Yugoslavia is out of control. But it would be fair to say that about the pitchers here.

The game, first introduced by U.S. Marines in 1919, has grown in popularity since becoming an Olympic sport, but in a country where the foot is the primary athletic weapon, it sometimes seems that Marines are needed to find home plate.

In one recent game, a team from Slovenia beat a team from Belgrade 15-8 and got just five hits. All 15 of their runs scored on walks.

But what is lacking in skill is made up for in enthusiasm.

Although baseball landed with the Marines at the Adriatic port of Split during World War I, it was not until 1974 that the first club, Nada (Hope), was established there.

At that time the only competition was teams from neighboring Italy. In 1980, several other clubs were formed in Yugoslavia’s northern regions of Slovenia and Croatia.

Until recently the game was not officially recognized by Communist Yugoslavia’s government sports council, where it was felt that baseball was an exclusively American pastime.

But last year’s decision by the International Olympic Committee to raise baseball to an Olympic sport as well as increased awareness of its popularity in other countries, led to a spurt of activity to promote the game in Yugoslavia.

The country currently has a 16-team league competing on soccer fields without a single pitchers’ mound among them.

The national champion for the past two seasons, Gunclje of Ljubljana would be sorely tested by an average U.S. high school team and placed tenth in the European Champions’ tournament last year in Antwerp out of 14 teams competing.

“We’re confident of improving on that at this year’s competition in London, but we still can’t take on teams from Europe’s leading baseball countries, such as Italy or the Netherlands,” said Janez Citerle, Gunclje’s club secretary.

Pitching is the weakest link on all Yugoslav teams, but is largely compensated for by the enthusiasm displayed by players and coaches alike, who practice doggedly and play in rain or snow.

It was in an offical league game earlier this season that the newly-established Belgrade Partizans, from the capital city, played a small-town team in the northern region of Slovenia and lost 15-8 despite giving up only five hits.

“Their desire to learn and eagerness to play after only eight months of practice is highly motivating,” said Bolt Morre, an American businessman from Detroit, currently residing in Belgrade, who coaches the Partizan team.

“During indoor winter practices I showed the players video tapes of last year’s World Series,” Moore said, attributing his pitchers’ problems to their attempts to immitate Orel Hershiser’s pitching style.

The result has been a lot of uncontrolled and inaccurate throws missing both the strike zone and the catcher.