Boktips: Baseball in Europe

2008-09-05 Boktips: Baseball in Europe Ett stort tomrum har nu fyllts i den litterära världen. Aldrig tidigare har en bok skrivits om basebollens historia i Europa - förrän Josh Chetwynd's Baseball in Europe som nu finns till försäljning genom förlaget McFarland. Boken omfattar

basebollens historia i 40 länder, däribland ett omfattande kapitel om Sverige.
Totalt är boken på 334 sidor - varav 14 sidor om Sverige - och rikligt illusterad med bilder. Historiken från Italien, Spanien, Belgien, Storbritannien, Tyskland, Ryssland/Sovjetunionen, Frankrike, Tjeckien och Kroatien. Resterande länder i Europa sammanfattas på 36 sidor. Dessutom finns alla resultat från EM-turneringar med, klubblagsturneringar, och mycket mer.

Köp boken direkt på adlibris.se, bokus.com eller internetbokhandeln.se
För en basebollvän är denna bok ett måste.

Ett litet smakprov kan vi bjuda på...

To understand Swedish baseball requires an appreciation for a culture that emphasizes an active outdoor life. How else could you rationalize playing baseball 200 kilometers from the Artic Circle? Consider this: Approximately half of Sweden’s population ages seven to 70 are members of a sports club, with about 650,000 (of the country’s nine million residents) engaging in competitive sports. Not only that, but more than two out of every three boys, ages seven to 15, belong to a sports club. All told there are some 22,000 sports clubs in towns and villages throughout Sweden. Quite simply, these Scandinavians love sports. So while ice hockey reigns supreme - which is unsurprising in a country where very little light shines in the winter - even baseball benefits by this emphasis on athletics. In the summer months, the sun practically never sets on the game of baseball in Sweden.

An independent people, the Swedes originally took to baseball without the aid of Americans trying to export the game to Scandinavia. Instead, locals were instrumental in the genesis of Swedish baseball at the dawn of the 20th century. Initial reports of the sport in Sweden date back to 1904 in the southern town of Gothenburg. Six years later, baseball’s first high-profile Swedish supporter would introduce the game in the north.

Born in 1870 on the Swedish island of Orust, Sigfrid Edström would become one of the most prominent Swedish sports figures of the first half of the 20th Century and a serious baseball supporter. A top-class sprinter at one time, Edström was instrumental in bringing the 1912 Olympics to Stockholm and would eventually become president of the powerful International Olympic Committee from 1942 to 1952. In addition to his sporting success, Edström was a learned man. He attended the prestigious Chalmers Institute of Technology in Gothenburg and ultimately served as director of the prominent electrical engineering company ASEA from 1903 to 1933. Augmenting his education at Chalmers, Edström spent time studying in both Switzerland and the United States. There’s little doubt that his time in America instilled a deep affection for that country’s national pastime because in 1910 he made a serious play for baseball. His launching ground for the game would be the home of his company ASEA - the town of Västerås, located about 100 kilometers from Stockhom. Edström would help set up a local team in Västerås and, according to one source, would provide rules and equipment for games in the capital of Stockholm as well.

Josh Chetwynd har varit aktiv inom europeisk baseboll som spelare under flera års tid, men även arbetat som reporter för USA Today, expertkommentator på Five, och kolumnist på NASN Europe. Han spelade för Oskarshamn i Elitserien 2003. Det här är hans andra publicerade bok som författare.

skriven av - Kristian Pälviä

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