by Riccardo Schiroli from Tokyo

COMPLETE PLAY BY PLAY GAME#2 EUROPE VS JAPAN

There are a couple of words I have heard many times Wednesday night at the Tokyo Dome, after the All Euro selection defeated Japan 6-2: “greatful” and “happy”.

Team All Euro manager Steve Janssen was definitely as “greatful” and “happy” as anybody else in all of Japan. He felt so emotional, that I even consider to hug him. Which is impossible: I am a professional writer and I have been trained not to be emotional. I have also been warned not to be too close to players and coaches. And last but not least, Janssen is the manager of Team The Netherlands and I am Italian. And in baseball, Italians and Dutch (or who represents The Netherlands, since Janssen is from Belgium) do not hug themselves. Or do they?

This Gobal Baseball Games may have changed a trend. I have heard Stefano Desimoni and Mario Chiarini of Italy say that this was a great chance to really meet some players they had faced many times, without getting to know them. Desimoni added: “It is so interesting, mixing different cultures”.

Diegomar Markwell of The Netherlands said the greatest accomplishment had been creating a team spirit in just a couple of days.

Chemistry on Team All Euro was as good as it gets. And we have to credit Janssen and the rest of the coaching staff for this. Of course, we also have to credit the players. All of them (with the exception of Alessandro Maestri, who is getting ready for the NPB season) hadn’t played a real game in a while. They flew very long distance, had the strength to adapt to the time zone (they succeeded much better then I did, for instance) and did “play with their heart”, as Janssen proudly stated. It doesn’t get any better than that.

There were not only good emotions, in the second game of the series. Hiroki Kokubo expressed his disappointment to the Japanese press for not winning on the day everybody in Japan mourned the victims of the 2011 disaster. It was 2.46 pm on March 11th 2011 when the most destructive earthquake in the history of Japan struck the Region of Tohoku.

“We had to win no matter what” he said.

I have a lot of respect for Kokubo‘s feeling. Still, I am a sportswriter and it is my duty to put on paper that All Euro was the best team on the field in both games. I understand this is a committing statement. But I dare repeat it.

It may not happen again, but in March 2015 Europeans were better than the NPB pros.

I had never considered I would write it, one day.

Photos by World Baseball Softball Confederation