r/AskEurope • u/chocolatelies • May 07 '25
Sports How big is baseball in your country?
I'm an American, so baseball is quite popular here. How is the popularity in your country? Is there a country other than yours where baseball has some popularity?
Edit: Just hit 69 comments. Nice.
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u/Dominjo555 May 07 '25
Baseball bats are common here in Serbia, but not for playing your sport.
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u/IDontEatDill Finland May 09 '25
But where do people buy those bats? 🤔 Are they sold in the guns department next to Rambo knives?
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u/The_Grinning_Reaper Finland May 07 '25
In Finland we have our own version: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pes%C3%A4pallo
Nobody cares about the other baseball.
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u/Masseyrati80 Finland May 08 '25
The differences I find most crucial:
1) the Finnish version is very fast paced
2) if not caught mid-air, the ball has to touch the field inside of its limits after being struck, meaning that hitting the ball out of the stadium is not a good move
3) since pitching is done upwards, the question is not whether the batter manages to hit it or not, but where he decides to place the ball, trying to find holes in the outer field
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u/lucapal1 Italy May 07 '25
It's not very popular in Italy.Neither to play,nor to watch.
I don't know anyone that follows MLB,or at least not anyone Italian! Maybe some expats.
Basketball (both local and NBA) is much more well known and followed here.
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u/chocolatelies May 07 '25
Are there any basketball teams that get the most attention in Italy?
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u/lucapal1 Italy May 07 '25
US teams?
I'd say the most popular are whoever is winning! I think a lot of NBA fans here follow players or switch from one team to another, depending on success.
Probably the most closely followed are the Lakers, the Celtics and Golden State...I know many fans of those teams.
There are also Italian teams of course, and they are very popular in some parts of the country, though nowhere near the level of soccer.
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u/avlas Italy May 08 '25
And maybe the ones where an Italian plays. Or at least it happened a little bit with Gallinari and Belinelli.
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u/SpiderGiaco in May 08 '25
For NBA depends on the age. Whoever grew up in the 1990s may be a Bulls fan due to Jordan. Overall, I agree though that most just supports whoever is winning or big players
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u/Lele_ Italy May 07 '25
Elio e Faso sono fan e facevano anche le telecronache. Penso siano gli unici due comunque.
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u/S7ormstalker Italy May 08 '25
It's popular in Emilia Romagna, but it's so much of a niche that people outside the region are confused when they drive by and see a baseball field.
Fun fact: Fabio De Luigi was a professional baseball player.
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u/just-a-Scapegoat May 08 '25
may not be popular, but Italy is one of the two powerhouses of European Baseball, the other being the Netherlands.
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u/SpiderGiaco in May 08 '25
It's popular around US military bases (not surprisingly). For instance Nettuno in Lazio has one of the biggest team in Italy. Ex-footballer Bruno Conti almost became a baseball player before switching to football (thankfully for us, since he was one of our best players in 1982).
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u/Numerous_Team_2998 Poland May 07 '25
Practically absent. I have never seen a baseball field in Poland. When I was a child in the 80s and 90s we sometimes played a slightly similar game called palant.
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u/suvepl Poland May 07 '25
Some two decades ago, when the media had a bit of a craze about reporting every single instance of football hooligans fighting each other, a popular joke was that your average spots shop in Poland sold a 100 baseball bats a year and not a single ball.
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u/Brian_Corey__ May 08 '25 edited May 08 '25
I taught English at a summer camp in Poland. We used to try to teach them baseball. Some years, the kids would be kind of into it. Most years it was not really popular. Lots of complicated rules, lots of standing around and waiting. Most kids only liked hitting, which is understandable.
In the US, its popularity is plummeting. I know there's still Little League baseball, but my son and none of his friends have ever showed any interest in it. Soccer, basketball, football are popular. It doesn't help that the Colorado Rockies are always horrible.
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u/11160704 Germany May 07 '25
American football has become moderately popular in Germany in the past decade.
But baseball is absolutely non-existent in Germany.
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u/VladimireUncool Denmark May 07 '25
Same in Denmark, everyone is familiar with american football, but I literally had to google what baseball is
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u/11160704 Germany May 07 '25
everyone is familiar with american football
I'd say in Germany it's far from everyone. Personally, I don't know any rules of American football and I guess it's the same for most of my friends and family.
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u/VladimireUncool Denmark May 07 '25
Me neither lol, it's mostly from movies and stuff ig.
Seems like baseball is a bit like Brennball?
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u/11160704 Germany May 07 '25
Yeah I guess. Brennball was pretty popular at my school.
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u/VladimireUncool Denmark May 07 '25
Lol, same here. There's just something magical about a bunch of 18-year-olds turning into little children again as soon as spring hits.
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u/brzantium United States of America May 07 '25
Very similar. Biggest differences: the defending team pitches the ball to the batter, only one player allowed on base at a time, and points are only scored when a batter rounds all the bases.
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u/Selvisk Denmark May 07 '25
Everyone is quite a stretch
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u/VladimireUncool Denmark May 07 '25
I think everyone in Denmark have heard about American football at least once in their life by now
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u/Cixila Denmark May 07 '25
There's quite a difference between knowing of its existence and familiarity. I'm familiar with tennis in that I know some players, the core rules, etc. I would not expect many can say the same thing about American football
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u/Alpatron99 May 07 '25
You do actually have the Deutsche Baseball Liga and your national team regularly participates in the Baseball European Championship and other tournaments.
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u/notacanuckskibum May 07 '25
Conversely the USA has a national cricket team. But how many Americans know what a sticky wicket is?
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u/Alpatron99 May 07 '25
Just like with other niche sports: the vast majority know absolutely nothing, but those who do know a lot.
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u/terryjuicelawson United Kingdom May 08 '25
I believe a lot of players are from a South Asian or Carribean background, so took it with them to the US rather than it growing there.
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u/notacanuckskibum May 08 '25
Sure, conversely I would expect the German baseball team to be mostly people from the USA.
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u/terryjuicelawson United Kingdom May 09 '25
The national team presumably has to be Germans, but I suppose could be children of Americans who migrated (ex-forces?). Looking at the names on wiki they are all Germanic. Compared to the South Asian names in the US
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u/CaptainPoset Germany May 07 '25
There is a Snooker Bundesliga, too, and almost everyone who plays Snooker as a hobby in Germany participates in it, so that doesn't mean much. If you find a 5. Kreisliga for a sport, then it's big.
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u/afriy Germany May 07 '25
It's not absolutely non-existent. My brother played in an amateur club in our hometown and they had a league they belonged to! unsurprisingly, a US military base had been there until the early 2000s, so I'm assuming American people established that club.
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u/AnnMitz84 May 07 '25
I remember playing ‘Brennball’ (burning ball) at school, which is kind of similar to baseball but without a bat. It’s a simple team game where players run between bases after hitting or kicking a ball and the fielding team tries to get them ‘out’.
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u/Equal-Flatworm-378 Germany May 08 '25
It is existent, but hardly anyone knows or cares. I had to google to find out.
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u/TheCynicEpicurean May 07 '25
Not quite, there's a couple semi-professional teams in a national baseball league. I only learned this when I moved to a city with one, though.
They seem to be concentrated around areas with former American bases.
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u/Dwashelle Ireland May 08 '25
There's an annual American football event in Dublin each year that's hosted by the NFL, weirdly enough. It actually seems to attract a huge crowd.
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u/tlajunen May 07 '25
Non-existent in Finland. But!
We have our own version, inspired by baseball originally. And it is our national sport (albeit way less popular than several other sports including football (soccer) and Ice hockey.
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u/BaronMerc May 07 '25
I know 1 person who plays baseball in the UK, I do not know where he plays it
We were taught rounders in school which evolved alongside baseball or is what baseball evolved from. They're quite similar with the main thing I can think of is that the bat is one handed, the ball is smaller and also you don't get gloves so enjoy the pain when you catch it
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u/Oghamstoner England May 07 '25
Rounders is popular but very much a kids game. Cricket is the grownups game which has some similarities to baseball, personally I love cricket, but there’s a lot of people who don’t give a toss.
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u/BaronMerc May 07 '25
I find cricket to be fair too different from baseball so I didn't think it was worth mentioning
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u/Oghamstoner England May 07 '25
I don’t know a huge amount about baseball. When I’ve seen the odd bit of it, I was surprised how many similarities there was to cricket with the structure and pace of the game.
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u/Brian_Corey__ May 08 '25
Cricket was played in America and baseball was developed from it, and both evolved since then. Shares a number of similarities--bat-and-ball sports where one team tries to score runs by hitting a ball and running, while the other team tries to prevent it. Both involve batting, bowling/pitching, fielding, and scoring, with teams taking turns in these roles. Similar terminology-- innings, umpires, runs and outs.
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u/terryjuicelawson United Kingdom May 08 '25
Other than a bat and ball, don't think they have any relation at all in terms of how they developed. Some terminology is there like innings and runs, other similarities are mostly logical - throw ball, hit ball, run places, get points - can't really do it any other way.
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u/Malthesse Sweden May 07 '25
In Sweden baseball is so small that it's basically non-existent. Basically no one watches or plays it. It doesn't exist here as a professional sport at all, and barely even exist on an amateur level other than with possibly a few enthusiasts.
We do have a recreational activity that is somewhat similar to baseball called "brännboll", but it is basically only played by kids at school. Some of the differences with baseball include that in brännboll you use a tennis ball instead of a baseball, you don't have a pitcher as the batter throws the ball into the air themselves, you can choose to use a flat bat to easier hit the ball, and the playing field is generally a lot smaller.
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u/carlaxel Sweden May 07 '25
We do have a "National baseball arena" in Sundbyberg. But apparently the only real baseball field in the country, its small but its a real field with dirt infield and pitchers mound. But i have read that they will be forced to make it a multi sport field to share with football soon.
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u/MangoLazer Sweden May 09 '25 edited May 09 '25
That can’t be true, there are two dedicated baseball fields in Skarpnäck. I saw flyers for the SM finals being held there a while ago.EDIT: Apparently Sunbyberg is the only internationally approved field. Sorry for doubting!
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u/Wafkak Belgium May 07 '25
In a lot of schools or youth groups baseball is one of the more frequent sports activities. There are also some amateur clubs.
It's common as a ting to play but not in terms of watching.
Tho houserules are a big thing. Partially because few know the full ruleset.
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u/padawatje Belgium May 07 '25
I just looked up the facts:
Today, 45 clubs make up the Royal Belgium Baseball & Softball Federation, with over 4100 members and more than 2900 active competitive players. And growing strongly …
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u/Tall-Poem-6808 May 07 '25
There is a national league in France, my nephew plays in it.
His father is a huge baseball fan and could already see him play in MLB. 98% of French people though don't give a damn about baseball, and probably don't even know that there is a league.
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u/chocolatelies May 07 '25
That's a common thing I've noticed, that unless it basically doesn't exist, it's more of a niche hobby in some European countries.
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u/AnalphabeticPenguin Poland May 07 '25
For my whole life in Poland I met 1 guy that was interested in baseball. It's also the only guy that knew the rules of it and saw any match.
The rest of us only knows it from American movies and because of that the only rule connected to baseball I know is that if a dad plays catch with his son, he's a good dad.
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u/Commercial_Gold_9699 May 07 '25
Nobody I know in Ireland watched it or plays it and any who have been to a match in the USA have hated it. American football and basketball would be more popular.
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u/SmellsLikeHoboSpirit May 07 '25
Rounders was good craic as a kid and I always imagined that’s what baseball more or less is, wonder if it’s still played
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u/Commercial_Gold_9699 May 07 '25
GAA run it in Ireland. It's still played. Used to like it as a kid myself.
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u/DanGleeballs Ireland May 08 '25
Well I'll be damned. I though it was non-existent in ireland, turns out we have 11 teams (including some in NI)
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u/FerraristDX Germany May 07 '25
Not very much. I guess there is a professional league in Germany, but it's neither on TV, nor on streaming platforms. I don't even know, where the MLB is aired, probably Dazn. So it's very niche, especially compared to Basketball, American Football and Ice Hockey, where the American leagues have attractive TV deals and fairly popular national leagues, at least compared to the juggernaut that is the Bundesliga.
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u/Fickle-Public1972 May 07 '25
Not popular at all where l am in Scotland. More Cricket, Rugby and Football teams.
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u/StillJustJones England May 07 '25
Baseball is the thing from that Kevin Costner film right?
It’s the sport that’s a bit like the child’s game they play here in the U.K called rounders…. It’s not at all popular or played in the U.K (or to be honest outside of the states, Canada or Japan…..
Not like Cricket. 🏏 a proper bat and ball game which is watched by waaaay more people across the world that baseball.
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u/captain-carrot United Kingdom May 08 '25
Ah I had no idea what they were talking about with "baseball" but you say this is just rounders? Not played that since I was a schoolboy. Fun game though!
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u/terryjuicelawson United Kingdom May 08 '25
A friend brought a proper rounders set to the beach recently, we got all the kids playing. It was awesome.
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u/Cixila Denmark May 07 '25
Basically non-existent. The closest you'll find is "rundbold" and that is a game mainly associated with PE and lunch breaks in elementary
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u/msbtvxq Norway May 07 '25
Completely non-existent, although we have some similar school playground games where we hit a tennis ball with a bat (but no gloves, helmets or other equipment). I think the only reason I even know about baseball is from seeing it featured in American TV/movies. That's also the only reason I know of American football and lacrosse.
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u/CreepyOctopus -> May 07 '25
It's pretty much non-existent. American football is a small niche sport, but far more popular than baseball which has near zero following. For most people it's just a sport that every American film or series references.
A somewhat similar Swedish sport called brännboll is fairly common to play, and in areas with many Finnish immigrants they play boboll, a Finnish sport.
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u/katyesha Austria May 07 '25
Never played it, don't know anybody who played it or follows it. If Austria/Germany do have professional baseball leagues or players I have never heard of them or seen them on TV.
I mostly know about baseball from American media like films, tv series, etc.
We did play a similar/older version of baseball called Schlagball in school sometimes. It's kinda like an ancestor of a lot of other games like baseball.
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u/jotakajk Spain May 07 '25
0 popular. I dont think more than 200 Spaniards know and understand the rules
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u/wllacer May 07 '25
Used to be bigger, well, perhaps 1000 people. I did even work with a former member of our national team, but that was over 30 years ago.
Cubans and dominicans (and other hispanoamericans) here, use(d) to play at least softball on weekends in some parks where diamonds could be improvised.
But 0 TV coverage, never.
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u/Alpatron99 May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25
It's a niche sport in the Czech Republic: Most people will say they don't know it's played here. But in fact it does have some decades of history, and there are two (amateur) baseball leagues, and many (generally larger) cities have a baseball stadium (though stadium is perhaps too strong of a word). Prague hosts the annual Prague Baseball Week, a tournament where teams all across Europe participate. We also recently hosted the Baseball European Championship in 2023.
Though the most important recent event was the participation of our national team at the World Baseball Classic in Japan in 2023. While we were knocked out in the first stage of the tournament, we did win against China, and played decently against Japan. And those games against Japan turned out to be very important as our team became known as the "unknown underdogs who managed played even with Japan". Since then, Japanese people have become quite fond of our national team—the first game against Japan had a decently full stadium; the second game had a completely full stadium as everybody now wanted to see round 2—and we are now getting getting invited to friendly games in Asia, and the Japanese ambassador is a fan too now. And domestically, that tournament and the general state of baseball in the country over the last few decades turned this very niche sport into... just a regular niche sport.
So while it is a niche sport, the few people who are into it—the players, the organisers, and the fans—do really enjoy the game and are trying to make baseball in the Czech Republic the best it can be.
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May 07 '25
I grew up playing baseball in italy. I started at the age of 7, in Milan, and to be honest I can't recall why I (and my twin brother) decided to take that up instead of some more popular sports.
When I was 11, my family relocated to the north east, where the Americans have a bunch of usaf bases, and most importantly, the whole region was a buffer zone overlooked by the Americans after the big war.
The scene was (and still is) thriving, I joined the junior division of a team that back then was in italy's mlb, and for almost a decade I trained every day, lived and breathed baseball, travelled for months on end. Loved it.
Though it's not as popular as other spirts, baseball has its own cult following, especially where the us set base after the war: the north east, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Naples to name a few.
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u/Kind_Ad5566 May 07 '25
UK
I took my son to watch Yankees v Red Sox when they were in London as a novelty.
Don't know of any interest amongst friends or colleagues.
The only American sport I would watch again live is Ice Hockey, and that's purely for the atmosphere.
TBH most American sports don't make much impact here at all.
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May 07 '25
It has a tiny following in the UK. If Tom Brady walked down a high street maybe 1 in 100 people would recognise him, if it were Shohei or Aaron Judge it would be more like 1 in 1000.
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u/japps13 France May 07 '25
You guys have cricket which is even more confusing
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u/terryjuicelawson United Kingdom May 08 '25
In theory it is very simple. Throw ball, hit ball, don't get caught, run but don't let them throw it at the stumps as you do so. More points for hitting the ball out of the field. It is all the details that get very complictated, and everything has a silly name.
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u/Smooth_News_7027 United Kingdom May 07 '25
If you understand in the context of sitting around watching for three days while getting drunk with your friends, it makes significantly more sense. I go to cricket games semi-regularly and I barely get what’s happening, which doesn’t seem that uncommon.
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u/Oghamstoner England May 07 '25
It’s perfectly simple. The team who are batting go in the pavilion, the team who are fielding go out on the field.
Then the pair who are in go out, and they stay in until they’re out, when they go in. And when all of the team who are in are out, they all come out and the others go in until they’re out too.
And then India wins.
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u/Varja22 Finland May 07 '25
People don't really watch or play baseball here but Finnish version of baseball called Pesäpallo is our 3rd most viewed sport after football and hockey and women's top league is by far most viewed women's sports league here.
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u/JimTheSaint Denmark May 07 '25
Not even a little bit - I know lots of people who follow NFL - but none who follow MLB
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u/SelfRepa May 07 '25
Due to pesäpallo, Finnish baseball, we know baseball. And we know baseball is boring and almost no-one plays it. And one Finnish pesäpallo player, Konsta Kurikka, is aiming for MLB, we sometimes are reminded baseball exists.
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u/Ontas Spain May 07 '25
In Spain baseball is that weird sport they play in some movies and TV series from the US and it basically doesn't exist outside of that. But it's a popular sport in Cuba, Puerto Rico, México and the Dominican Republic, maybe some other Latin American countries too, not sure.
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u/CraftAnxious2491 Croatia May 07 '25
There are active clubs here in Croatia, but I m not soo sure about popularity.
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u/tretbootpilot Germany May 07 '25
The team from my city is the national champion and averages around 200 spectators.
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u/AppleDane Denmark May 07 '25
Our versions of "stick and ball" games are played in schools, when the PE teachers can't be bothered to come up with a program.
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u/Essiggurkerl Austria May 07 '25
I have watched "a league of their own" and have probably come across some other bits of baseball in american tv shows or movies, but I have never seen any footage of a real game in my life.
I can't say if it's "popular" in Austria, because I don't know if it even exists
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u/Alpatron99 May 07 '25
It exists, like in many European countries, there is a small niche following with the Baseball Bundesliga and a national team that participates in the Baseball European Championship among other things.
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u/BonsaiBobby Netherlands May 08 '25
In school we played baseball very often, together with soccer and field hockey.
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u/hwyl1066 Finland May 08 '25
The Finnish version is such a fun game - American baseball is like watching paint dry, never seen it played here, but I guess they have a couple of amateur teams.
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u/Slusny_Cizinec Czechia May 08 '25
It is very niche. There are baseball pitches and I suppose some people do play it, but it is never in the news nor in public discourse.
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u/vakantiehuisopwielen Netherlands May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25
In secondary school (12-17yo) softball was pretty standard during the sports lessons in my school, but baseball as is, is not really big. Admittedly that my school used a sports venue which included a baseball field, and I'm not expecting many schools have that.
Club baseball is never broadcasted, just -sometimes- the Dutch team, as they're pretty high ranked internationally, which says all about the popularity of baseball outside the US and Japan..
And I think you could say the same about cricket outside the commonwealth.. For some reason the Dutch team is ranked high, but I know no-one who knows the rules of cricket.. It's just a typical English sport (satire) for us.
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u/LilBed023 -> May 07 '25
Dutch cricket is surprisingly interesting. We only have about 6.000 players, but those players tend to take the sport very seriously. I’ve played quite a few sports, including cricket, and nowhere else did I see the same dedication and love for a certain game as at my local cricket club (only rugby comes somewhat close). That combined with the fact that a significant part of the player base are immigrants from England, South Africa, India, etc. make for a pretty decent cricket team.
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u/chocolatelies May 07 '25
I'm honestly shocked at just how specific baseball is to the Americas and Japan.
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u/gmennert Netherlands May 07 '25
I dont agree with this take on Dutch baseball. The national baseball league is definitely on the national broadcast channel a couple of times a year. And I think we have one of the best national teams/leagues in Europe. Mainly because of our large Antillean diaspora. Our national team was world champion in 2011, and we had multiple Dutch players in the major league.
Okay, it’s definitely not as popular as in the United states or Japan. But we have a long history(since 1920) with baseball, and it’s more populair than in other European countries.
The wiki gives a nice summary : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_in_the_Netherlands
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u/JudgeWhoOverrules United States of America May 07 '25
Don't forget South Korea and Taiwan are both huge baseball nations.
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u/GoonerBoomer69 Finland May 07 '25
We have our own version of baseball that is very popular, but American baseball is not a thing here at all.
Finnish baseball is basically a more confusing and complicated, but also a less boring version of American baseball. Key difference is that the pitcher throws the ball vertically instead of horizontally, while standing next to the batter. This makes it so that a player basically never misses the ball, but this is compensated by the fact that the ball must land inside a border around the pitch.
I can't be bothered to explain every difference and rule since we'd literally be here all day, so if you're interested google it.
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u/Tempelli Finland May 07 '25
Here is a good explainer video about the rules of Finnish baseball aka pesäpallo if OP is interested.
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u/BossCoffee51 May 07 '25
I liked baseball in Japan. I think it has a great atmosphere and a real Japanese feel. American baseball, I wouldn't even have a clue what's going on, and honestly, I'm not interested. But it would be cool to get to one of the big parks in the north and experience the atmosphere.
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u/signol_ United Kingdom May 07 '25
UK here. People know it exists, that it's an adult form of the children's game "rounders".
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u/Sick_and_destroyed France May 07 '25
Honestly, apart from the NBA, no US sport has a worldwide audience. So in Europe we’re no different, nobody cares about US sports, baseball included.
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u/Winterspawn1 Belgium May 07 '25
Non-existent popularity except perhaps with some immigrants.
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u/Ordinary-Violinist-9 Belgium May 07 '25
You obviously don't know about the sunville tigers from zonhoven and my late uncle hermans n-stars from pelt where he even got into an altercation with the new york yankees because the logo was too similar.
We have plenty of groups, not as much as soccer but plenty enough to form a competitive league and good players even get scoutrd to f.e. the netherlands.
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u/Billy_Balowski Netherlands May 07 '25
It's not a thing here, we only know it exists from US movies and series.
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u/dolan313 Semmel with hagelslag May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25
We have 7 tiers of men's competition. To act like people wouldn't know of honkbal (I mean, we even have a local name for it) without US media is a really strange claim imo. We won the world cup in 2011, from what I understand the successes of the Dutch team are pretty much entirely thanks to players from the Caribbean Netherlands but it's by no means 'not a thing here'.
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u/vakantiehuisopwielen Netherlands May 07 '25
Indeed, at my school we often were doing softball during the sports lessons.
I think of the 3 typical American sports, baseball is in 2nd.
Basketball
Baseball
American football
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u/OllieV_nl Netherlands May 07 '25
It's definitely a thing, but it is primarily big in cities with lots of Antillians. As such the Hoofdklasse is mainly based in the West and you'll barely notice anything of it outside those cities.
The Haarlem Honkbal Week is a big event and teams like Kinheim, Neptunus, HCAW, Pioniers and Pirates usually make it to the Sunday sports show.
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u/gmennert Netherlands May 07 '25
Bad take, i think we have one of the if not the best national teams/leagues in Europe. We also play it in high-school a lot.
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u/blink-1hundert2und80 Austria May 07 '25
True. According to the WBSC world rankings Netherlands is 7, and the best in Europe.
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u/yot1234 May 07 '25
Maybe it's about an age gap but this sounds ridiculous to me. It's regularly featured on national tv. I literally had friends playing the sport competitively growing up and we were world champions a few years back.. granted the best players are from the Antillen.
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u/LTFGamut Netherlands May 08 '25
Not true, I played baseball myself for about 10 years.
It's decently popular. Not as big as it was before (from the 1970s to the 2010) but still there are many teams, club teams in every middle sized town, the Hoofdklasse is a semi pro league with some decent stadiums and ends in the Holland Series every year which draws decent crowds. The baseball weeks and tournaments (Of which the World Port Tournament in Rotterdam is the biggest) are also popular and draw okay amounts of spectators.
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u/InThePast8080 Norway May 07 '25
Baseball is quite minor sport.. though danish longball has some popularity in schools..
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u/chunek Slovenia May 07 '25
I think we have eight baseball and softball clubs, and our national team competes at the european baseball championships.. but it's far from a "big" sport. My cousin plays amateur softball, and sometimes they also play in neighbouring countries, or host them here.
Football, Basketball, Volleyball and Handball are all more popular team based sports. Road cycling gets a lot of coverage, ski jumping is very popular for how niche of a sport it is, then there is climbing, etc.
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u/oskich Sweden May 07 '25
Almost unknown sport in Sweden, there are 40 registered teams in the Baseball/Softball and Lacrosse association. We have a similar sport called Brännboll which is very popular in Swedish schools.
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u/brownkrecha May 07 '25
We sometimes use bats here in Poland. In my opinion it stays us somewhere near this game
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u/blue_bren May 07 '25
I've never heard of it played here in Ireland. I saw the Mets play in NY. Great day out.
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u/Sad_Conversation1121 May 07 '25
In my city in Italy there is a field, but I don't know if it is used
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u/Wojtasz78 Poland May 07 '25
Never seen anyone played, never heard anyone talk about. I only saw it in american movies and still don't know the rules.
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u/Delde116 Spain May 07 '25
Its not a sport in Spain. There are not teams, no league that is.
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u/Alpatron99 May 07 '25
Spain has a league, the División de Honor de Béisbol, and even a national team that participates in the Baseball European Championship among other things. Niche yes, nonexistent no.
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u/Delde116 Spain May 07 '25
well look at that, didn't even know they existed... if anything that even says about the popularity.
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u/Bluntbutnotonpurpose Netherlands May 07 '25
Baseball...that's a bit like cricket, isn't it?
Just kidding of course, but I have never heard someone tell about playing it or liking it. I suppose curling is more popular..
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u/Pitiful-Hearing5279 May 07 '25
In the UK young children play a version of it called “rounders”. The bat is short and a tennis ball is used. One difference is that we use a cricket-like “wicket” as a target to throw (underarm) at.
As a teen we played some softball at school though cricket was much more dominant.
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u/LilBed023 -> May 07 '25
It’s decently popular in the area where I’m from originally and very popular in the Dutch Caribbean, but it’s a small sport nationwide. The largest baseball stadiums host about 2.000-2.500 people. My native city hosts a “baseball week” every two years where the Dutch NT (and a seperate team for the Dutch Caribbean) play an invitational tournament against foreign teams. Many Dutch NT players are from the Dutch Caribbean or of Dutch Antillian descent. Our second best paid athlete is baseball player Xander Bogaerts.
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u/Bernardozila 🇵🇹in🇬🇧 May 07 '25
Non-existent in Portugal and the UK. Like NFL, MLB seems to roll into London in the summer for pre-season games but I don’t think many people attend. They show the games on Sky channels but they’re late at night.
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u/Dopral May 07 '25
It's not. No one plays it or knows anything about it. The only place you ever hear about it is in US media.
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u/mtnlol Sweden May 08 '25
Completely nonexistent. I don't even know the rules and the only exposure I've had is American movies.
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u/WrestlingWoman Denmark May 08 '25
I don't even know if anybody plays it here. That's how little I hear about it in Denmark. I only know the sport from American movies.
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u/KotR56 Belgium May 08 '25
Not popular. It exists.
A friend of mine is a softball player.
Her sons are promising baseball players who were in the US for clinics a few times.
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u/Sagaincolours Denmark May 08 '25
Uh, kids play rounders a lot.
As for baseball, I had to look up if it is even played at all here. I was surprised to learn that there are actually five teams in the country. But that still makes it super tiny.
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u/terryjuicelawson United Kingdom May 08 '25
There is a British Baseball which has some very minor regional interest, believe it predates American baseball. Girls used to play it when I was in High School in South Wales, believe Liverpool play it also (if it is still going, no idea). Rounders is a common similar game often played in PE in schools. Of the main US sports however, it is by far the one we know least about in terms of players. There are obvious things like the ball, and the bat and you go round bases but I don't know how the scoring works. I can't imagine it being a very interesting spectator sport for someone not familiar with it. Seems to be more to cricket in that respect.
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u/GirlyGirl_Nerdy May 08 '25
I've only met one Dane who cares even a bit about baseball. I know it's a sport, that something's called the NBA, that Americans care a lot about it, and that in some places, there are corgi-races during the break.
We do have rundbold here, which I saw other people mention in the comments by some other names. It's a kids' game, though, the kind that kids in school will beg their teachers to let them play when it gets even slightly sunny outside. It's also pretty fun when you're drunk. On the last day of high school, my classmates and I played against another class with a few bottles of wine on the side for occasional pit-stops. I don't think you can do that with baseball, though.
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u/SalSomer Norway May 07 '25
Not at all, it’s one of the smallest sports in the country. In fact, if you asked a random Norwegian, I’d say they’re most likely to not even know that teams playing baseball exist in the country. People also don’t watch the MLB.
Bit of a weird fun fact, though: There’s this guy who grew up on my street. We both have the same name, we both have a dad who was a minister. He ended up being involved in organizing baseball on a national level in Norway, I ended up being involved in organizing American football on a national level in Norway, so we’re both involved in a minuscule American sport most people here don’t even know exists. I think it’s a weird coincidence.
Anyway, I’m obviously more of an American football guy, but I’ll watch a baseball game if the Royals are playing.
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u/Hyadeos France May 07 '25
Without American tv shows and movies we probably wouldn't even know about baseball.