The Best of British Baseball

The other day I vented on twitter, "can't believe they're making golf an Olympic sport while baseball and softball aren't."

(Actually, it's kind of a good thing they got kicked out because it made the World Baseball Classic a top priority. It sucks for softball though.)

A Dutch friend of mine replied, "It's cause golf is played around the world and... well, the States aren't the world :P"

Oh, people. Especially Dutch people, who don't even know that their country has won the European Championship 20 times, or that it beat the Dominican Republic twice in the last World Baseball Classic. Let alone the fact that they play baseball.

Well, now that the Red Sox season is officially over, and I'll be following the MLB playoffs from afar, I'm returning my focus to baseball on this side of the world. (I currently live in the Netherlands.)

As most fans know, baseball is played in huge parts of Central and South America, and Southeast Asia. South Africa competes in the WBC, though they haven't been very successful. I've heard a little about baseball in Israel.

But very few people seem to be aware of baseball in Europe, and then if they are, even fewer seem to take it seriously. (Hopefully those Dutch upsets of the DR are changing that.)

But today, as I sifted through blogs I follow on my dashboard, I came across an entry on Baseball GB about the first inductees to the British Baseball Hall of Fame.

A little more research, and what can I say? Surely nothing more than they can at those links.

But boy is it exciting to see the game spreading and growing like this. Congratulations to British Baseball and its fans!