Category Archives: Sport

Fields of green: baseball in Ireland

MLB spring training baseball is in full swing here in Florida, and my wife and I attended our first game of the season on Saturday in Lakeland, watching the “home” Detroit Tigers beat the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates 4 -1. The game-time temperature was 57 F (14 C) under breezy, partly cloudy skies. Year-round Floridians such as ourselves bundled against the “cold,” while the Detroit and Pittsburgh visitors (and most players) seemed to take the weather in stride.

I was thinking about baseball in Ireland, having recently come across the Field O’ Dreams website though my Twitter feed. The New York-based Baseball United Foundation is raising money to build a baseball field in Ashbourne, County Meath.

Baseball in Ireland isn’t as new or as rare as you might think. The sport has been played in the Republic and Northern Ireland since the late 1980s. Here’s a history from Baseball Ireland, the sport’s governing body

Back in the summer of 1990 I donated a baseball glove to the pioneers of baseball in Ireland through my good friend Scott Cronenweth, a technology marketing copywriter then doing work for Lotus Development Corp, now part of IBM. At the time, many US software companies were opening development offices outside Dublin to advantage the well-educated, English-speaking workforce and Irish tax breaks. In a recent email, Scott picked up the story of his trip and first-hand encounter with early Irish baseball/softball:

Many of the [software] companies had softball teams and played one another. The Irish folks were very determined, but of course terrible because they hadn’t played as kids. They also didn’t really know the rules. Fielding in particular was really poor, resulting in astounding scores like 78-56. They’d just keep playing, inning after inning, til it got dark around 10PM and then go to the pubs.

Baseball and softball in Ireland have come a long way since then, but the sports still need help developing decent fields and obtaining adequate equipment. Spring training is already underway for the 2013 Adult League season, which begins March 23. They play for love of the game, and in Ireland they are not bothered by a little brisk weather.

image

Aerial view of O’Malley Fields in Dublin.

Fighting Irish to play for NCAA Championship

With its win Saturday night, Notre Dame completed a 12-0 regular season that began Sept. 1 with a game in Dublin. The “Fighting Irish” survived two overtime games to remain unbeaten. They will play for the national championship in January against the winner of the SEC championship, either Alabama or Georgia.

The university’s website says the origins of the Fighting Irish nickname are unclear.

The most generally accepted explanation is that the press coined the nickname as a characterization of Notre Dame athletic teams, their never-say-die fighting spirit and the Irish qualities of grit, determination and tenacity. The term likely began as an abusive expression tauntingly directed toward the athletes from the small, private, Catholic institution.

The nickname was officially adopted in 1927.

Ireland’s Olympic haul

Alright, we knew that the United States would have a big haul of Olympic medals in London. And congratulations to all of those athletes who won gold, silver and bronze.

But we were happy to see Ireland have its best Games since 1956, according to Reuters, taking home five medals, four in boxing and one in show jumping.

The big story was the gold won by women’s lightweight boxer Katie Taylor of Bray. Today she got a hero’s welcome home, with some 20,000 turning out in the County Wicklow town, The Irish Times reported.

Taylor has a humble and devout personality. “I had a whole nation of people praying for me,” she said. “I just felt the presence of God in that stadium.”

The story continues: “Not one for over-elaboration, she departed the stage a few minutes later. Taylor said she wanted some sleep and to visit her 80-year-old grandmother Kathleen Cranley, who she has not seen for weeks.”

Reuters noted, “The strong Olympic showing comes after a disappointing European Championship soccer tournament, in which the Irish team lost all three matches, and at a time when the country is struggling to recover from economic recession.”