Following Mike Piazza's Rainbow Tour of the continent last fall, baseball is now considering playing a couple regular season games in Rome next season. They would take place in July or August, when there are no soccer matches.

Link to story here.

Can't see the article because I'm not registered with NY Times online. But ITALY??? Is Italy a big baseball country? That's an awful lot of travel in midseason, especially for teams not from the east coast.

i don't know of any european country that's into baseball.

but still, it's a good move to promote the sport.

With falling ratings and attendance here in the US, Buddy ought to be more concerned with promoting the game here rather than Europe. A couple of exhibition games, fine. But in the middle of the season, to ask two teams to travel to Italy to play a three game series makes no sense. Japan and Mexico at least have an affinity for baseball. Europe cares about baseball even less than the US (generally speaking) cares about soccer.

[ April 29, 2003, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: George_vikingfan ]

The only reason why I would like to see baseball's popularity spread is because of the (mostly European) International Olympic Committee's pending decision to take it out of the Olympics. However, if MLB would take an interest in the Olympics like the NBA, NHL, and MLS have, they probably would consider keeping the sport. Otherwise, I just cannot see any other reason to promote the sport in Europe. ...and right now, I am not too sure how anxious the European community is about accepting anything that could be considered America's game.

The story's being reported on other sources now. Here's a link from Yahoo.

What a dumb idea.

DCBucky, the actual time frame being discussed is June-August. In 2004 that is a big difference because the Euro 2004 football (soccer) tournament is being held in Portugal all through June, with the final on July 4 All of sporting Europe will be focusing on that, not some silly derivative of cricket that Americans play. And even though Italy play an ugly, defensive style of footie, they'll still probably do well in the tournament, so no one, and I mean no one, is gonna care about the hype for baseball while Euro 2004 is on.

And they'd have to convert the Stadio Olimpico as well? Baseball cannot be played in a sane fashion in a football stadium, you end up with 270 foot foul lines. And they're taking measures to try and minimize the impact if nobody shows up? Uh..........

Actually, Holland has the most baseball friendly situation going on in Europe but then Amsterdam, home of hash bars and legal hookers, isn't exactly Rome when it comes to a place that the bigwigs would want to travel to, is it?

The inmates are truly running the asylum at the MLB offices.

Now I have songs from Evita stuck in my head!

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jason Simontacchi did pitch for Italy internationally before joining the Cardinals and winning 11 games last year. He's really struggled this year, though.

BTW, where's Rick Ankiel?

For what it's worth, I once read that baseball has enjoyed a certain popularity in Italy since American troops introduced the game when they were present, there, in the WWII era. Some Italians continue to play the sport; during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, I watched the Italian team play the U.S., in a game held at the Braves' Fulton County Stadium (the Braves were playing away-games while the Olympics used their ballpark.) I have to admit I'm a fan of practically everything that's Italian and, because Major League Baseball is my favorite team sport, I have purely subjective reasons for wanting to see these two cultures flourishing together in mutual benefit. I can't determine whether or not this idea makes good practical sense, but, if fine Italian-American boys like Mike Piazza aspire to bestow the gift of baseball upon the the Old Country, I say more power to 'em...