Watch how this team of amateurs made the World Baseball Classic
Nobody anticipated them to be right here. The Czech Republic, a crew of all novice gamers who play within the novice Czech Extraliga, upset Spain — a squad that includes former Major Leaguers and prime prospects like Noelvi Marte, 3-1 within the Regensburg qualifier. For the primary time in nation historical past, it occurred: The Czech Republic will play within the World Baseball Classic.
When Pool B play begins on March 9 in Tokyo, there can be large identify stars like Shohei Ohtani and reigning NPB and KBO MVP Award winners Munetaka Murakami and Jung-Hoo Lee. But there will even be this crew of dreamers from a small nation within the middle of Europe.
Its star pitcher, Martin Schneider, can also be a firefighter, his schedule forcing him to overlook one out of each three Extraliga video games as a result of he is on obligation on the firehouse. Center fielder Arnošt Dubový is a highschool geography instructor and the crew’s media supervisor, Lukáš Ercoli, doubles as its media coordinator. Even supervisor Pavel Chadim does this on the facet. In his day job, he’s the main neurologist in Brno.
“We proudly call ourselves ‘The heart of Europe,’ because the Czech Republic is really situated in the middle of Europe,” Ercoli stated. “We have barely over 10 million citizens, so it’s a really small country. But I think we’ve shown many times that the world has to contend with the Czech Republic. We have great athletes in ice hockey: Jaromír Jágr, Dominik Hasek, David Pastrňák. We have great soccer players. We shocked the world many times – and we did the same thing in baseball. With this achievement, I think we will write the Czech Republic in the history of baseball, as well.”
Major League Baseball not too long ago despatched a digital camera crew to the Czech Republic for per week to fulfill these gamers and spend time with the membership. We traveled to their places of work, watched them at observe, and realized what it actually means to play baseball within the Czech Republic. Watch the documentary above or click on right here. (And sure, there are Czech subtitles, too.)
