Russian Baseball

Baseball in Russia

The following is a brief description of our baseball tour to Russia. There are a number of links to Russian pages that show some of the sights and numerous descriptions of Russian culture.

Brief History Baseball has existed for only a few years in Russia. We made our trip in the summer of 1992, less than a year after the revolution. At the time, this was the 4th year baseball had been played in an organized manner, if you call it organized. There are professional teams but not a regular league as we know it. The teams we came across seem to go to tournaments throughout Europe and play amongst the other teams available.
Who is we? We took 2 teams with us for this trip, one was a team made up of Giants fantasy campers and another of Dodger fantasy campers. Most of the Dodger guys took the 17 hour Aeroflot flight from San Francisco while I traveled with the Giants team on British Airways through London for a day and then, on to Moscow. As I waited in the terminal, I could feel we were going to someplace somber and mysterious. All of the people waiting wore mostly plane, conservative clothes and few had smiles or anything much to say, it was a very quiet terminal. I was feeling the effect of the iron curtain already.
The Airport As we approached the runway of Sheremetyevo-2 Airport, I noticed how the grass, the fences the buildings and everything about the airport seemed to be deteriorated and not maintained, much like most buildings in Moscow. Going through immigration was a slow process, we were sent down to a basement with army guards, no one spoke as we waited endlessly to funnel ourselves through a couple of turnstiles. The immigration officers seemed to have a minimum time limit that each had to spend on each person. They would look at your passport, wait about 2 or 3 minuets doing nothing and then hand it to you. Customs was pretty easy but they only had one line to go through until enough people yelled and then they opened another. It took a good hour to get through both of these.
I exchanged $20 at the airport and was intrigued at the wad of cash I received return. At the time, the rate was about 165 rubles to the dollar. Our bus ride from the airport went through the suburbs of Moscow. I thought only the Simpsons and nuclear power plants in residential areas. In general, the buildings were all high rise apartment buildings with 50 to a couple of hundred between them, little variations in the designs.
The Hotel We finally got to our hotel the "Sport Hotel" built in the early 80's for the Olympics. As are most buildings in Moscow, ours was made of concrete. The steps and handrails had disappeared in many places, tiles had fallen off the building, no one seems to worry about the weeds that surrounded the building as landscape, I thought no one was home until I saw some of my Dodger mates coming from around the corner playing catch. After a slow check-in and endless wait at the elevator, I made it up to our room. There is a maid at each floor and she lets you in your rooms and takes care of various tasks at that floor.
The rooms are relatively small. A red telephone that occasionally worked, a small TV of about 1950's technology, 2 narrow beds, a desk, a refrigerator that was all rusted inside and out, a chair with torn covers, window curtains hanging from a few threads, 3 light fixtures with one light bulb, a bathtub with no curtain or shower head and 2 dishtowels to wash and dry with and no toilet paper. Home at last. None of us were very happy with our tour coordinator.
Shortly after arriving, it was dinner time where we met with our host baseball team, the Tirastopol Giants from Moldavia. The Russians were all very nice and eager to be our friends. We ate, drank wine, drank vodka, told stories, made lots of trades and had a good time. My roommate and favorite catcher Randy and I struck up a friendship with their catcher and one of their pitchers, Vadim and Andre. About a third of their team spoke enough English to communicate with, but we all spoke baseball.
Our First Game The next day, we had breakfast and went to our 1st game. Today, we were playing a double header against the Moscow University baseball team. There is a brand new stadium with astroturf on the campus that was built by the Japanese. It was an impressive site to be standing on an astroturf field in the middle of Moscow with ominous buildings towering around the field.
The Giants played the first game and got beat. I was starting pitcher for the first game. I pitched well but had no defense. We had about half of our players that could hold there own, the other half were a liability in the field and at bat. The Russians were impressed with my curve ball and slider. They are just learning and have not developed a lot of the skills as yet. They like to hit and run, steal, bunt and try and have strategy plays. They didn't bother giving hand signals, only verbal, none of us could understand them anyway. I did manage to strike a few of them out. We got beat but had a good time and showed our new friends the Tirastopol Giants that they still had a number of things to learn. They had given me a nick name "goot curveball" and every time one spoke to me in the next couple of weeks, that was what they wanted to know about.
The Russian Teams The Russian teams are made up of young professional athletes. All came from different sports. Mostly from track type sports. All of their pitchers were former javelin throwers and pitched in the same manner you would throw a javelin. Most were in their early 20's and had us older 40 and 50 year olds well out matched. We gave them a good game anyway.
Russian People Randy had a friend who had a friend who could line us up with our own personal interpreter. We arranged for her to meet us at our hotel after the game. We were delighted to find a beautiful 20 year old girl named Olga waiting for us at the hotel. While the rest of the team went on the team bus, we took a taxi with Olga to Red Square.
Moscow Red Square is a very impressive place to visit. Like much of Russian architecture, they build on a very large scale, not tall but wide. Some buildings take up 1 or 2 blocks. We strolled around the square and around the Kremlin enjoying our conversation with our interpreter. This was her first job. She was embarrassed to ask for as much as $10 per day, Randy and I decided we should each giver her $10, she was overwhelmed.
Russian Income Russian income is sparse compared to ours. Her mother was an English teacher at the university and her father is in charge of an aerospace design division. There combined income was $30 to $40 per month. The $20 a day we gave to Olga seemed like a fortune to her.
The Russian baseball team is sponsored by private individuals. The average player makes about $25 to $35 a month. They also get incentatives for base hits, home runs and pitchers for wins and strike outs. Maybe the American teams should try something like this instead of guaranteed big salaries.
Russian Red Army Team The next day, we all loaded onto a bus that took us on about an hour drive out of town. I finally saw some wood 1 story buildings in the country. We were the first Americans to be invited to this Russian army base where we were to play the Russian Red Army Team. We passed through the guards and through some woods to a sporting area at the base. It was an old track stadium that had been converted to a baseball field. It was about 500' to the left field fence and about 250' to the right field fence. The stadium was about 15 tiers high with bleachers only on the 3rd base side. In right field was a gymnasium and the ever present statue of Lenin looking over your activities.
I was the starting pitcher again, I strolled to the mound and was amazed at how high it was. It must have been at least 3' high. I have never pitched from a mound so high. I knew if I could get my curve ball working, they wouldn't stand a chance.
We jumped ahead 4-0 in the first 2 innings and my curve ball was breaking great. I pitched the 1st 5 innings and was striking out about 2 batters an inning. Every time I threw them a fastball, they would swing and most often hit it, but they could touch the breaking stuff. We went on to win. To make it extra sweet, a couple of generals and colonels had joined the spectators. It was nice winning in front of the big brass.
The SF Giants were to play a team from Siberia or some other place east. They all kept to themselves, none of them spoke English and no one would tell us anything about them. They were a very good team and beat the Giants quite easily. While they played, we had lunch with the Teraspol Giants and the Generals. They had some special homemade Vodka they insisted we try, so we did. It was brown vodka but smooth and tasted good.
The Army Base I strolled off with Olga to see the rest of the base. We came to another guarded road, she spoke to the guard and he raised the gate. We walked for about an hour, looking at buildings, I took several pictures and came back to the field. When we returned to the gate, the guard said he could have been court marshaled for letting me in and game me a Russian pin. I gave him one of my baseball cards and thanked him.
Food in Russia The next couple of days were spent being tourists. After three days of the same poached egg and dry toast for breakfast, rice and some mystery meat for dinner we were all anxious to go to MacDonalds where we could get a decent meal (sic). It sure tasted good. We had 3 big macs, 3 fries, 3 chocolate malts, and 3 apple pies for about $4.50, what a deal, it made the 20 min. wait to get in worth it. It was the biggest MacDonalds I have ever seen and still has a line a block long to get in.
A few of us went back to Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral and Gums department store. After touring and shopping we were ready for a cool drink, a rare find in Moscow. We decided to check out the Intourist Hotel where we were happy to find an air conditioned bar with cold Lowenbrau on tap, sure tasted good. We decided to stay for a dinner show and were impressed. The show was very good and the food was real, what a treat.
St. Petersburg The next night, we took the mid-night train to St. Petersburg. Our hotel was much nicer than the one in Moscow and had better food. It also had a ballroom and 2 discos, one for rubles and one for dollars. By now we were exchanging our money for 175 rubles to the dollar. We spent most of the day at the Hermitage, the winter palace of the Czar Peter. Quite impressive, bring some comfortable shoes and plan on spending a while. The square itself is also very impressive. The military building across from the Hermitage is almost 2 km long. Later that night we went to the Cabaret where we saw a very nice variety act called Amerika. Have you ever heard America sung in Russian? It sounded great to me. We spent the rest of the night at the discos.
The Summer Place The next day, we took a boat ride to the Summer Palace of the Czar. It is still under renovation, it was bombed in WW II. It has beautiful gardens, paths and grounds, it was like a park. We took the bus back to the hotel, it was nice to see 2 and 3 story wood buildings again instead of the masonry monoliths in the inner cities. Beautiful onion dome mosques everywhere.
Mid-Night Train to Moscow We heard rumors of a European hotel downtown that served real food so we all feasted that night. Then it was off to the train station to catch the midnight run back to Moscow.
After very little sleep, we arrived in Moscow only to find that we were to play a game against the Teraspol Giants. Someone else pitched the game for us. I spent the entire game in the bullpen for the the Russians doing a pitching clinic. I had 2 interpreters and shoed them how to throw 3 different types of sliders and a curve ball. It was a lot of fun for me and they all respected my abilities, especially for someone my age who could throw as hard as I could and the things I could make the ball do. We lost to the Giants.
Back to Moscow
We gave or traded quite a number of things with the Russians. We left several bats and baseballs with them. Equipment is almost impossible for them to get. I did manage to get a brand new Russian made baseball, signed by the players.
The next 2 days we were mostly tourists while the Teraspol Giants were playing their arch rivals, the Moscow Red Devils (the team the Angles gave their old uniforms to) and beat them. We had dinner one night in the TV tower that overlooks Moscow, it is taller than the Seattle Space Needle and gives an interesting view of Moscow at night, no neon and relatively dark.
Leaving By the time we left, we had all lost weight and were ready to leave, hopefully to return again someday. The trip home turned out to be an experience for the ones on Aeroflot. There was a 17 hour delay while they fixed the plane. That is a long time to sit in a Russian airport. Tempers were getting pretty hot, the women refused to use the facilities but finally they got off the ground for a 17 hour flight with no air conditioning, seats that don't recline, animals in the cabin and who knows what they were eating. The ruble was now going for 195 per dollar.
London Our British Airways flight through London allowed us a pit stop where we all searched out the nearest Italian or Steak house for a meal we could relate to.
Summary The worst part of the trip was our hotel and it's elevator and mildewed concrete smell, the best part of our trip was the cultural experience of being in a 1000 year old city and the many friends we made with the Russian baseball team.
Further Adventures As it turned out, we were to see them very soon. They were coming to Phoenix for the MSBL World Series the following November. We sponsored them for a week in San Francisco prior to the tournament and arranged 8 games for them to play. We had a good time showing them American life.
Dah, Neht!
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Home Page By Dennis McCroskey, All Rights Reserved Last Updated July 27, 1997