At the first ever international tournament for under-18s hosted by TV Canstatt’s baseballers, the team from Paris prevailed over both the London team and the TV Canstatt host team, the Stuttgart Reds.
Top class baseball was to be seen at the DB Ballpark. The world baseball organization PONY (Protect Our Nation’s Youth) worked with TV Canstatt to organize the U18 tournament, named ‘Palomino’. Future tournaments will serve as an open European championship, to enable teams to qualify for annual world championships to be staged in the US. This coveted opportunity isn’t yet available for the winners of this tournament. Chief organizer Andre Fink of the Stuttgart Reds, however, hopes soon to receive a positive message from Washington that Europe will gain this starting place and that TV Canstatt will be the annual host of this internationally important event.
The five guest teams showed great appreciation of the organization and realization of the tournament in the attractive baseball grounds of TV Canstatt’s DB Ballpark. Additionally, fans of the teams were able to follow every game in livestream on the internet. Jan Bagin, head of the PONY European Zone, did us the honour of opening the tournament, together with TVC president Roland Schmid and Martin Brunner from the MLB Europe. Jan Bagin was extremely satisfied with the first tournament for this age group staged in Europe. “This is just how the U16 age group started in Prague in 2006. Now 40 teams are playing annually for the European qualifying places”, said Bagin in his opening speech.
For the home team, the Reds, the tournament was also a sporting success. They only lost by a narrow margin to Paris and London, and in both games they played with equal quality. They succeeded in beating the select team from Lithuania and Belarus and it was a clear win against the select team from Brabant (Netherlands/Belgium). The highlight for the Reds, though, was surely the 12:5 win against the Swiss national team. Meeting a national team is always something special. Winning the game made it an unforgettable experience for the 20 players in the age group that entered the tournament for the Stuttgart Reds.
About PONY:
The baseball and softball organization PONY backed this tournament. The name stands for ‘Protect Our Nation’s Youth’. The PONY league was founded in the summer of 1951 in Washington in the US. Not in the world-famous capital city with the White House, but in a small town of the same name in Pennsylvania. From the start, the idea behind PONY was to inspire kids and teens to play baseball and softball and to use the common sport and common goals to strengthen the sense of community in the cities and quarters they played in, not just in the sport itself. What began in a small regional league in Washington, Pennsylvania developed over the years into a multitude of leagues and tournaments and now over 500,000 players take part in PONY tournaments or leagues every year.