EUROPEAN CUP FINAL FOUR FIELD FINALIZED

The weather in Italy held up long enough earlier this month to allow the European Cup’s final four teams to be determined. Holland’s Corendon Kinheim and Amsterdam Pirates will be joined by Italy’s Danesi Nettuno and Fortitudo Bologna in Barcelona, Spain when the finals are played in June.

Amsterdam took the top seed in their six-team pool in Nettuno, including a clinching 8-4 win over Germany’s Regensburg Legionaere on April 4. Jos de Jong got the win for the Pirates after allowing three runs over seven innings. Nettuno won the second Final Four berth in their hometown pool by topping France’s Rouen Huskies, 7-3, as Giovanni Carrara came out of the bullpen to toss three scoreless innings for the win.

In Matino, where first-day play was called off due to unplayable grounds, Bologna bested Spain’s FC Barcelona, 2-1, on April 4 to take the top seed out of the pool as Jesus Matos turned in a splendid performance for Bologna, no-hitting Barcelona for five innings en route to the complete game win. Kinheim won the other berth from Matino with an 8-2 win over T&A San Marino as Dirk van’t Klooster collected three hits, two runs and two RBIs.

EUROPEAN CLUP OPENS DESPITE POOR FIELD CONDITIONS

The 2009 European Cup got underway in Italy last week, but not without concerns about weather and field conditions. While there were no problems getting one group of six teams going in Nettuno or Anzio, poor field conditions forced a change in format in Matino.


The six-team pool in Nettuno and Anzio are Spain’s Puerto Cruz Marlins, Belgium’s Antwerp Royal Greys, Germany’s Regensburg Legionaere, France’s Rouen Huskies, Holland’s Amsterdam Pirates and host Danesi Nettuno. Rouen won their first three games, including an 8-5 shocker over Dutch champion Amsterdam, to take the early lead in round-robin play.

Things didn’t get off to such a smooth start in Matino, where a sloppy field led to cancellation of first-day games and a reconfiguration of competition among their six teams. Instead of a straight round-robin format, the pool was split into two groups with three teams each. Group A consists of Italian League champs T&A San Marino, Spain’s FC Barcelona, and AVG Draci Brno of the Czech Republic; while Group B includes France’s Senart Templiers, Holland’s Corendon Kinheim and Italy’s Fortitudo Bologna.

The top two teams from each pool will advance to June’s Euro Cup Final Four.

EUROPEAN CUP TOURNEY DRAWS SET FOR 2009

The Confederation of European Baseball has selected twelve prominent teams from eight nations for two European Cup tournaments to be held in 2009.
At a meeting in Frankfurt, Germany last weekend, the CEB set the draw for a pair of six-team tournaments in Italy between March 30 and April 4. One group will include Danesi Nettuno of Italy, the Amsterdam Pirates of Holland, France’s Rouen Huskies, Spain’s Puerto Cruz Marlins, the Antwerp Greys of Belgium, and the Regensburg Buchbinder Legionaere of Germany. Games will be played in Nettuno.
The second group will feature T&A San Marino, Italy’s Fortitudo Bologna, FC Barcelona of Spain, AVG Draci Brno of the Czech Republic, Corendon Kinheim from The Netherlands and France’s Templiers Senart. The site for these teams has not been determined.In addition, the CEB awarded four cities with Euro Cup Qualifying tournaments in mid-June: Trnava, Slovakia; Attnang-Puchheim, Austria; Antwerp, Belgium; and Ostrava, Czech Republic.