I know I'm a little late with this year's annual baseball email but better late than never to update everyone with news from Budapest on this little baseball vagabond adventure I've been on for the past 6 years now.
I arrived in Europe
at the end of April, but unlike years past where my main purpose was to
play professionally, I have taken on some new roles that are very
different than before.
This is a great opportunity for someone my age, to lead a national team, consisting of the best players in the country of Hungary in
various international tournament throughout the Spring and Summer. We
just completed our national team training camp yesterday and we are
getting ready for a friendly match against a team from the U.S. next
week, followed by the Prague International Cup tournament June 30 &
July 1 as we continue to build for next year's European Championships
Qualifier.
Additionally, I am directing player development for
the whole country, which involves traveling every week to various cities
and towns throughout Hungary, helping individual clubs with their
training programs and outreach activities to recruit new players to the
sport. I'm helping develop the baseball fabric in a country that only recently started playing baseball with the end of Soviet rule in the early 1990s. There's a lot of room to make a large impact on how baseball players are developing to play the game correctly.
Meanwhile, I am also continuing to play professionally for the Janossomorja Rascals http://www.facebook.com/pages/
So far I've helped the Rascals as a starting pitcher and designated hitter into 4th place in the Inter-League. Last weekend I hit my 2nd home-run of the season and pitched the last two innings against Obuda Warriors for the save that helped locked up the final spot in the Inter-League playoffs to be played in Croatia at the end of September: http://www.mister-baseball.
We also recently finished in 4th place (out of 12) against club teams and national teams from all over Europe at the Finkstonball Tournament in Attnang-Puchheim Austria a few weeks ago:
http://finkstonball.com/ . And for the second year in a row, 3n2 Baseball is sponsoring me and for all my baseball and softball playing friends I encourage you to check them out at www.3n2sports.com
Of course as many of you are aware, during the past
few years I have been working towards a law degree at University of
Detroit Mercy School of Law. While playing and coaching in May I was finally able to graduate, and now even though I maintain my profession as a baseball player and coach, I also am officially a lawyer now.
Many things have changed in the past 6
years - as I have played, coached and scouted around the globe from
Belgium to Israel to Australia to the Netherlands and Germany, and now in Hungary. (I think I'm on pace to set some sort of record with playing in the most amount of countries -
I remember starting out in Belgium back in
2007, the only way to communicate to friends and family back home was
to post my adventures, pictures, and game recaps on my blog: www.justprin.blogspot.com.
Only U.S. college students were on facebook, and there wasn't much international media attention to baseball in Europe.
Now with almost everyone on facebook and with these other websites I
have sent links to - it's much easier to take a few minutes and share in this adventure with me.
Check out my photo gallery on facebook:
Austria Tourney:
Photos from Hungary:
And you can "Like" my player page: http://www.facebook.com/
Stay in touch and enjoy the summer (or Australian winter, for those down under)!
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