The Zagreb Chronicles: Opening Day

By Christian Hummel | Monday, April 15, 2002

I first met Jason while registering as a foreigner at the Zagreb police station, which, at the time, was full of foreigners. On that day alone, I met the contractors for the new American embassy, several USAID contractors, and Jason. When I inquired what he was doing in Croatia, he told me his church had sent him here to coach baseball. He had been playing ball at a Division III or NAIA school in Oklahoma, but knees now prevented him from playing competitively. I ran into him the following day near the subway and got his number. I had forgotten about our meeting, but as opening day passed and the Major League Baseball season commenced, I remembered to give Jason a call.

The baseball players of Croatia meet in secret. The baseball field was tucked out of sight in Novi Zagreb, near the Sava River and Zagreb Fairgrounds. After walking several kilometers trying to find the diamond, I discovered the clay of the infield and the green of the outfield. As I approached, several members of the home team were preparing the diamond by watering down the infield with a firehose, raking the batter's box, and tending the mound. They worked so proficiently that they could have been groundskeepers at any American park. The rest of the team was warming up in the outfield, and some players took batting practice in a batting cage.

The pre-game infield practice for the Zagreb team proved a bit shaky—the second baseman had a bit of trouble with the throw to first. Immediately, I understood what was behind the high scores posted on the league tables at the entrance to the park—poor defense. I longed for my Little League days.

Meanwhile, the visiting Karlovac side, called the Kelteks, looked a bit more serious. The team's colors were blue and white, and their manager wore a Yankees camp. Their catcher was of the proper stature and utilized a booming command voice to line up the cut-off men. Not that it mattered, though.

Soon, proper-looking umpires appeared, the line-ups were exchanged, and Zagreb took the field. Their pitcher got off to a good start, fanning the first batter with a high fastball, his only pitch. But things went downhill as he walked next batter and then threw three wild pitches, allowing a runner to come home. Between giving up bases on balls and hitting another, Karlovac had no trouble getting runners on. Two flares to the outfield soon made the score 6-0 in favor of the Kelteks. The top half of the inning took half an hour.

Karlovac started a hard-throwing southpaw to stymie the Zagreb hitters. He also had trouble finding the strike zone and walked several batters. A sacrifice fly to center scored one run, but a bad base-running decision ended the inning 6-1. The game was painful to watch beyond that—I did not have the benefit of a case of Ozjusko beer like a team in the stands did. They had played earlier in the day and were staying to catch some of the action. I lost count of how many pitches I saw bounce in the dirt before making it to the catcher, how many errant tosses were made; at one point I even saw a pitcher throw behind the batter.

The umpires were extremely competent. They were properly equipped with the little broom and the requisite strike/ball counters. Their rulings were well-voiced in English and they positioned themselves properly. Both teams were well-equipped with full sets of bats, gloves, uniforms and other necessities. The umpires, however, didn't to rub down the game balls properly. If the outfield distances had been marked in English units instead of metric (95 meters down the lines, 115 in straightaway center), the whole scene could have been played out at any ball park in North America. In fact, the field was probably in better shape than many I've seen.

How baseball first appeared in Zagreb is truly a mystery to me. On all of the fliers I saw regarding the league and upcoming events, only Croatian names appeared. I had initially thought that baseball's presence was a product of the ex-pat presence, but I was wrong. It is very odd to see baseball in Europe, outside the friendly confines of American military bases. It is doubly odd to see it in a country where another American export, basketball, is either the second-most or most popular sport in the country. With several Yugo-slavs in the NBA, the TNT game of the week broadcast on tape delay every weekend, and several competitive Croatian teams playing in the European leagues, Croats can't seem to get enough basketball. The national soccer team shocked the world in the 1998 World Cup with their defeat of Germany in the quarterfinals and third-place finish. In this country they will broadcast a Ukrainian weight-lifting competition if there is a Croat in it, but there isn't a word for baseball.

Yet, there I sat on a sunny April afternoon, watching baseball in Zagreb. It wasn't very pretty, but it's a start.

The Zagreb Chronicles: Opening Day

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