Russia's Boys of Summer

It’s March  and spring training has begun for the Russian National Baseball

Team. But this is Moscow, not Florida, so the fields are still snowy white at the team’s training center in Balashikha, a small town northeast of the capital.

The weather confines the team to indoor training sessions. And since the hall is just 60 by 40 meters, the best that can be hoped for is a bit of catch and some batting practice.

“Unfortunately the climate in Russia doesn’t suit baseball,” said Alexander Ratner, vice president of the Russian Baseball Federation. “One can only play in summer, which is quite short here. So players find it hard to improve their skills—they don’t play enough games in a season.” Russia’s baseball season starts on May 8 and goes only until the end of September (fully three months shorter than in the US).

But it wasn’t always like this. In the late-1980s and early 1990s, Russians regularly went to Florida for spring training. “Back then,” recalled Andrei Artamonov, a veteran of the game who led his team, the Red Devils, to six national championships, “we were all residents of Florida ... We lived a real good life. Our guys had a very decent salary ... we earned as much money as a Soviet general.”

Ironically, the glory days ended in 1995, when travel became easier between Russia and the West. Up until that time, Russian businesses had sponsored teams as a way to establish contacts in the US, to obtain US visas more expeditiously. When these business people could now travel more easily on their own, the sponsorship dollars disappeared.

In what was their first trip abroad in nearly two years, the team traveled to the US this April and May for a tournament held across Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Missouri. Star pitcher Yuri Zhirov said in March that he expected “good food and a good tan,” out of the trip, but primarily “good play and good spirit.” With the 2001 World Championships (to be held in Taiwan) not far off, Zhirov said, the team “needs to recharge its batteries.”

Javelins into Bats

The Soviet Union became interested in baseball when it became an Olympic sport, in 1986. “When baseball was included in the official program of the Olympics, the [Soviet] Olympic Committee decided, ‘OK we will quickly create a team which will win the Olympics,’” Artamonov recalled. Officials recruited the most talented athletes from other sports, like tennis and track and field.

The Russian National Team’s head coach, Nikolai Gervasov, is a former track and field athlete who threw javelin.  Zhirov, 40, was also a javelin thrower; he placed second in the 1987 Soviet championships and won the USSR Cup that same year. But an elbow injury in 1990 forced him to retire from track and field. He moved over to baseball and is still Russia’s best pitcher.

Apparently, retraining from javelin to pitching was fairly straightforward. “The only thing I had to learn,” Zhirov said, “was how to hit the strike zone. It took me about three years to hit the zone from the mound; I have been with the national Russian team since 1993.”

It was Zhirov’s pitching that led the team through the World Championship competition in 1998. The team’s high point was a respectable one-point loss to the heavily favored and more experienced Canadian National Team. The Russian team lost every game at the competition, but not their spirit. “We performed poorly at the World Championship, as we lost all our matches,” Ratner said. “But, on the other hand, it was useful for us, because our players, for the first time, had the opportunity to play the world’s best teams: Australia, Nicaragua, Taiwan, South Korea and Canada.”

The goal of capturing Olympic Gold is still far off. Russia did not qualify  for Atlanta in 1996, nor for Sydney this year. “The problem is,” Artamonov reflected, “baseball is not a sport where you can obtain results overnight.” So, for now, sights are set on Taiwan in 2001, and on the 2003 European Championship, which will be a qualifying competition for the 2004 Olympics.

Of course, this is not to say the team lacks ambition. “The first generation of our national team is not psychologically ready to beat the Italians or the Dutch,” Ratner said. “But today’s juniors don’t have such a complex. And if we can use the next two to three years to help the young players improve, maybe they can beat the Dutch and the Italians.”

In fact, the prospects for Russia’s team seem particularly bright when cast in light of results vs. experience. “If you compare the number of people practicing baseball with the results we have obtained,” Ratner said, “it would be the number one sport in Russia. We have about three to four thousand people playing baseball in Russia, including children and juniors. And during the last two to three years, Russia has regularly placed highly at European competitions in different age categories. In 1997 and in 1999, our national team won fourth place in Europe in the A League. This is what qualified them for the 1998 World Championships.

“Russia did not qualify for the World-1998 Soccer Championship in France,” Ratner continued. “Nor will Russia play in EURO-2000. But the national baseball team secured a solid fourth place on the continent. Our juniors (18 and under) were second last year at the European championship in Europe—they only lost to Holland in the finals (12:13). And believe me, it was a very close match. Our cadets (under 12) were European champions in 1999 ... At the European Championship last summer, second baseman Alexander Nizov had the most stolen bases. So, in terms of results obtained in European competition, our baseball is ranked quite highly. We are one of those ‘baseball countries’ to be reckoned with and where baseball is on the rise. If we take into account that we are just 10 years old, we have achieved a lot.”

For better or worse, these achievements have not gone unnoticed by scouts from the US. In the past few years, at least six Russian ballplayers have been recruited to play for US minor league teams.

“On the one hand, the Federation is happy about it,” Ratner said, “because it enables our players to practice with the world’s top players and to grow. But then we may lose these guys altogether. We need them to play for our national team and it is not always easy for us to get them back from there.”

Bartending basemen

While they work and wait for the sport to come into its own, Russia’s baseball players must be ready for some hard sacrifices. “Life is hard for them, Artamonov said. “Everyone is trying to work somewhere. No one can live by baseball alone. When I was playing, we were forbidden to work elsewhere. We practiced from dawn to dusk. Now the guys work on the side to make some money.”

Ruslan Nabiev, the team’s third basemen, moonlights as a bartender. But, he says, “baseball is my passion ... I receive a salary [for playing baseball], but it is by no means huge.” Last season, Nabiev played in Belgium for three months. He and catcher Andrei Selivanov were some of their team’s best players. “Yet, we couldn’t extend our contract,” Nabiev explained. “We had a guest visa, which did not allow us to stay in the country for more than three months.”

Nabiev, whose club, VATU, is Russia’s defending domestic champion, said he sees the coming road trip to the US as a unique opportunity to travel to baseball’s homeland. But he does not hold out hope of being signed by a US team. “I am too old to play in America,” he said. “You need to go there at 16, and I am 22. This age is only OK for Europe.” But, he said, best of all, the team will face strong competition. “Unfortunately [in Russia] we have no competition ... All our rivals only fight for half a game and then just give up.”

First baseman and pitcher Oleg Korneev, 17, has better prospects for US recruitment. This star of the Russian Juniors Team was picked to practice in Balashikha with the National Team. Yet, he said, “I am not sure whether I am going to go to Texas. I was invited to play in America, for the Seattle Mariners ... But, right now, working visas are difficult to get and one has to wait. The other problem is that the team needs me here. So I may not leave. Everything is being decided.” Korneev’s father, Leonid, was also a baseball player and introduced Oleg to baseball at the age of 9. “For me to go to America,” Korneev said, “is a unique chance to perfect my skills. Only there can I have this opportunity.”

Baseball in the blood

Discuss the sport for very long with Russian baseball addicts, and talk inevitably turns to Russia’s homegrown version of the game. “We have a similar folk game called lapta,” head coach Nikolai Gervasov said. “And this element of hitting the ball with a wooden bat is present there as well.” Artamonov added that “the principle of ‘hit and run’ works in lapta too ... But in lapta you tag the opponent by throwing the ball. In baseball you can only tag when the ball is in the hand or in the glove.”

“I have seen Russian men take the bat in their hands for the first time,” Artamonov continued. “It takes some strength and skill to hit the ball with the bat, and these Russian novices did it with typical Russian passion.”

Baseball also seems to fit with the Russian passion for collectivism. Eduard Malkhasyan, a coach and enthusiast who works with kids at Moscow’s Matsumae Stadium (given to Russia by Japan in 1989 as a token of friendship, and named for Director of Tokyo University Sigiosi Matsumae), came to baseball from martial arts. “It is one thing when you respond for yourself, but when the team is on the line—it’s a whole different story. You may be a superstar in baseball, but if you are not one with your team—nothing doing, the team will lose. Human relations come first in baseball.”

And even though it has only been here ten years, baseball is settling in well with the Russian language and culture. While words like “catcher” and “pitcher” are entering the lexicon unfettered, some homegrown colloquial phrases are rising up from the diamond, e.g. “sech polyanu” (literallly, “ watch the meadow”) for “heads up” or “vykatit pushku” (“to roll out a cannon”), used when a relief pitcher is brought in.

Russian baseball folklore of course cannot be silent on vodka. According to Artamonov, the team bars its pitchers from raising a glass of vodka in their throwing hand when resting between starts. “... In our team the pitcher can only take a glass in his right hand if he is a lefty and vice-versa. If we see our pitcher take the glass in his throwing hand, he is fined.”

Baseball diplomacy

Of course, for Russia and the US, baseball carries much more value than as a source of linguistic and folkloric exchange. In fact it was and is a part of official and unofficial diplomacy. “Ten years ago,” Artamonov recalled, “when America had a huge interest in seeing baseball develop in Russia, baseball was like a friendly hand tendered by America to Russia after the cold war was over.” Americans like Richard Spooner, Randy Hundley (a former Chicago Cubs player) and Bob Protexter made significant contributions to the team’s early development. Today, Laura Mitchell, a Peace Corps volunteer based in Pskov, has taken up the team’s cause. Mitchell helped organize the team’s trip to the US. The Texas-Louisiana Independent Baseball League, host organization of the tournament, was thrilled to be working with the Russian National Baseball Team. “It gives our League and our fans a chance to experience a taste of Russian Baseball and a little bit of Russian culture, while helping the Russians to promote their league,” said Texas-Louisiana Independent Baseball League Tournament Coordinator Sherri Eldridge.

“Maybe the scale is not the same any longer, but Americans have not lost interest in baseball as a means to establish contacts, said Artamonov. “It was, is and will remain!”

But not everyone understands the link immediately. Recently, the US Peace Corps presented baseball uniforms to Pskov and some other cities. Local authorities in Pskov didn’t know what to do with the uniforms and were apparently going to mothball them in a warehouse. Artamonov stepped in. “I said, ‘This is not just a baseball uniform. It is a token of friendship. It is as if they were saying to you, “Hey, let’s get 100 grams of vodka and let’s be friends.”’ So we ended up holding a baseball clinic in Pskov. More than 200 children attended.”

Artamonov sees great potential in Russian youngsters. “But there are not enough coaches,” he lamented. “There is not enough equipment and Russia badly needs help. A good bat costs about $100. And, starting this year, we will be playing with wooden bats only, so they will be broken more often. Gloves cost around $100 too. Our juniors—those twelve and under—were European Champions in 1999. It is now or never to get them some help. Otherwise these talented kids will go nowhere.”

This is why Artamonov is bringing two 12-year-old pitchers with him to the US this summer, so that they can study and play baseball in the US for a year. “A 12-year-old is ready to throw curve balls,” Artamonov said. “It is just the age to learn it. If we integrate these two young kids into America with studies and a stay with an American family, it will help us create a civilized system of contracts. You need to begin from a very early age ... this will also help them set the right priorities in their lives—i.e. am I going to take drugs or do I have a unique opportunity to seize in this life?”

Artamonov’s boss, Ratner, also hopes to use baseball to better relations with the US: “I personally think the development of baseball in Europe in general and in Russia in particular is contingent on the attention America gives it. If Americans want to make baseball strong ... then baseball in Europe and Russia will develop. ... I am talking about both propaganda about the [American] lifestyle and its financial interests. There are also some players to buy and sell, and some uniforms to buy and sell as well ...”

Artamonov concurs. “Why would Americans be interested in developing baseball in Russia? Because it is a huge market. Baseball is the best showcase of business in sports. Every element of business can be found in this sport: how to fill the stands, sports fashions ... a lot comes from baseball, including the fashion of wearing baseball hats. It’s a big sports industry. When I studied at Moscow State University’s Sports and Tourism Faculty, our textbooks cited examples of business in sports borrowed from baseball. Advertising, the search for sponsors—it was all taken from the experience of the New York Yankees or the Kansas City Royals. This, in our Russian textbooks! Therefore, I believe Americans have a huge interest in seeing baseball develop in Russia. It is a huge country, and, in fact, not poor at all, but very, very rich.”  RL