www.baseball.hu

From March Szentendre Sleepwalkers will be strengthened by an American coach. Anthony Bennett has baseball as his profession: since 1995 he has been professional player and coach around the world. He has a degree in Physical Education, studied sport medicine, nutrition, exercise physiology and rehabilitation at San Francisco City College and West Valley College in Saratoga, California. After college he was signed by the Milwaukee Brewers, spent several years at different teams in the Minor Leagues, and also in Australia and Europe. He worked at clubs in the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland where he also coached the U18 national team. He played an important role in making Draci Brno one of the top teams in Europe, and was the only coach up to this day to lead a second division team into the final four of the Czech National Cup. He spent his last season at Nekketsu Making in the Japaneese Industrial League.

Anthony’s motto: “Winning is not everything, it’s the only thing”. In his former teams he was known as a confident, charismatic leader with attention to his players, and a good sense of motivation and communication with any age group. Though he does not speak Hungarian, being a certified teacher of English as a foreign language he may be helpful at the practices to improve the language skills of the players as well.

In Szentendre he will be the head coach of the senior, junior and softball team, and the Sleepwalkers can count on him as a player as well. He will also be responsible for recruiting, developing talents, and promoting the game. Besides the Sleepwalkers he will be involved in several programs of MOBSSZ (National Federation), sharing his knowledge not only in Szentendre but the whole Hungarian baseball community.

Anthony Bennett has signed an agreement with the Sleepwalkers for the coming season so far but both parties are open to a co-operation for a longer term.

In March you will find a longer interview with him on the website of the team (www.sleepwalkers.hu). If you have any questions you would like to ask him leave a comment here before the end of February!

The technical commission of the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) announced the groups for the European Cup Qualifiers. Hungary will be represented by Szentendre Sleepwalkers in the tournament and as expected was assigned to the group in Croatia.

Karlovac (CRO)
1    Superfund Wanderers AUT
2    Buffaloes Blagoevgrad BUL
3    Espoo Expos FIN
4    BK Kranjski Lisjaki SLO
5    Szentendre Sleepwalkers HUN
6    Olimpija Karlovac CRO

In last years Interlegue play the two teams split their two-game series. Both games were nailbaiters, Szentendre lost by 1 run in the first game and won by 3 in the second game. The other opponents like Expos, Blagoevgrad and Lisjaki has not made the mr.baseball TOP50 club list so we can hope Szentendre will play well and win a few games

Read the rest of this entry »

…based on voting by the clubs the award goes to…

Baseball Player of the Year: Péter Lupták (Óbuda Brick Factory)

And we have co-MVPs in softball, namely Krisztina Balatoni (H. Astros) és Ágnes Szántó (NotebookSopron Squirrels).

Congratulation!

ÓBUDA BRICK FACTORY

Óbuda Brick Factory – Szentendre Sleepwalkers
Hungarian Championship Series 2009 final result: 4:3

G1 / OCT-10 / OBF – SZS 4:8
G2 / OCT-17 / OBF – SZS 1:4
G3 / OCT-18 / SZS – OBF 4:11
G4 / OCT-24 / SZS – OBF 6:8
G5 / OCT-25 / SZS – OBF 9:6
G6 / OCT-31 / OBF – SZS 8:5
G7 / NOV-01 / OBF – SZS 14:7

Recap of game 7 coming soon!

Game photos:
Pictures by Szendi Varga János

Óbuda – Szentendre: 3-3

In game 6 Óbuda tied the best of seven series. Zsolt Zalabai pitched the complete game and Brick Factory won 8-5 Saturday afternoon. Óbuda scored early and carried a 6 run lead into the sixth innging.
Szentendre almost tied the game in the sixth, scoring five runs, but most of these runs came again on misplays of Brick Factory defense. Team Óbuda added insurance runs in bottom of the eighth and Zalabai preserved the lead.

Game 7 will start 1st November at 11:00 in Szentendre (Izbégi baseball field, Szentendre, Szentlászlói út 160). As Chuck Tanner once said: “It’s hard to win a pennant, but it’s harder losing one.”
Last act of this great series, and last chance to see a great ballgame in Hungary until next spring!
See you at the field!

Third game of the series was played again in cold weather but Brick Factory players brought hot bats to the plate. After wasting a great performance by Xiong Xiabo in Game 2, Óbuda jumped on Sleepwalkers starter Péter Gyurcsek right from the start scoring 4 runs in top of the first inning and they never looked back. Sleepwalkers answered with only one run in the bottom of the first and Jorge Fernandez made it 5-1 in the third inning with a long drive that landed in the woods way behind the right field fence. Giving a comfortable lead early to their ace on the mound the defending champions Brick Factory cruised the rest of the way.

Read the rest of this entry »

On an unusually cold October weekend game2 of the championship series was started by two veteran pitchers and one of them even managed to complete it. Attila Varkonyi limited the Óbuda offense to 4 hits and one run, struck out seven and was helped by a stellar defense to pitch a complete game. It was a great pitching duel, Xiong Xiabo, the Chinese import of Brick Factory, matched up with Varkonyi through eight innings.

Score was tied 1-1 in the top of the 9th, when Xiabo hit the first batter he faced and was relieved by Zsolt Zalabai. Zalabai pitched well but despite the cold weather there came a defensive meltdown for team Óbuda. After the hit by pitch the next two batters reached base on infield errors, both of them commited by first baseman Jorge Fernandez. In addition to that Sleepwalkers grabbed the lead, scoring on a passed ball. After another passed ball and a balk the bases were empty, so the fans actually cheered a 3 run rally which happened without a basehit. After these misplays Zalabai settled in and retired the next three batters in order.

Balazs Kalocsai started the bottom of the ninth with a basehit, but the Óbuda rally was closed short after Norbert Goor grounded into a 6-4-3 double play. Várkonyi finished the game by striking out Csaba Goor looking.

Seems the cold weather gave the necessary cold blood to Szentendre team to win this nailbiter. After this 4-1 victory Sleepwalkers lead the series 2-0, next game will be played on Sunday 18th, at 11:00 am.

1:30 pm
Rain was over around 1 pm as expected but field conditions could not be improved after all-night rain so umpire József Kiss-Jakab decided to cancel the game.
Game2 will be played next Saturday, 17th October at 1:00 pm.

10:30 am
Today’s game is delayed due to rain. Ground crew is working on the field and we hope the weather forecast will be right and rain zone will pass Budapest by noon. Expected first pitch at 1:30 pm today!

Every streak comes to an end sooner or later, but it happened at the worst moment for Zsolt Zalabai, who finished the regular season with a 7-0 record.

Miklós Földessy hit a three-run homer, Péter Gyurcsek pitched seven innings effectively and the Szentendre Sleepwalkers beat Zalabai and the Óbuda Brick Factory 8-4 in the series opener.

Sleepwalkers came out swinging in the first inning, Balázs Németh and Imre Illés hit singles then Földessy connected for a homerun, that just skipped off the top of the left-field fence.
Sleepwalkers added a run in top of fourth when Dániel Erdélyi doubled down the right field line scoring Balázs Halmos. But this was answered in the bottom of the inning by Obuda, as Zsolt Zalabai scored on a sac fly by Norbert Goor.
In the fifth the Sleepwalkers scored another two runs with help of shaky Óbuda defense. To make things even, with runner on first base Sleepwalkers centerfielder Miklós Frank dove for a ball (needlessly) but could not make the catch. So that hit by speedy shortstop Peter Luptak turned into a 2-run inside the park homerun instead of a single.
In the seventh inning Brick Factory threatened but Gyurcsek pitched out of a bases loaded jam giving up just one run. And again in the top of the eight Szentendre padded its lead with a two-out rally. Zalabai got two quick outs to start the inning but then gave up a single to Balazs Nemeth and issued back to back walks the next two batters. This time with the bases loaded Foldessy delivered again and hit a two-run single to shallow left field.
Seasoned veteran Attila Várkonyi relieved Gyurcsek in the eighth inning and secured the win for Sleepwalkers.

Last weekend in the Hungarian Cup final Óbuda won with 10 run mercy rule over Szentendre, but we saw a different Sleepwalkers team on the field this Saturday. One week after Cup finals this result is little bit surprising but in case the Sleepwalkers can maintain this level of play it will make the series quite interesting. Right now it’s raining in Budapest but hopefully we don’t have to wait another week to see these teams play another great game. See you on the field tomorrow, play ball!

The Hungarian Cup Final Four will take place this weekend in Érd. The first round of the Cup was played in August as a single round robin with 4 groups of 3 teams. Winner of each group qualified for the Final Four. Debrecen Tigers is the only 3rd division team in the finals, they surprised everyone in the first round beating the 2nd division team Jaszberény Stinky Sox.

The teams will square of in semifinals on Saturday and winners will play in the finals on Sunday from 11:00 am. In the first semifinal last year’s Cup winner Óbuda Brick Factory will play against the hosting team Érd Aeros. In the other semifinal the Debrecen Tigers can make an attempt for a much bigger surprise as now they will face 1st division team Szentendre Sleepwalkers. But most probably we will see Brick Factory and Sleepwalkers in Sunday’s game, which can be considered as tune up for the National Championship Series starting next week between these two teams.

Schedule:
Saturday, October 3rd
10:30 Óbuda Brick Factory – Érd Aeros
14:00 Debrecen Tigers – Szentendre Sleepwalkers

Sunday, October 4th
11:00 final