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Pesäpallo - Pesis
(Finnish baseball)
Finnish baseball, pesäpallo, is
the national game of Finland
and it was introduced in 1922 by Lauri Pihkala.
It is estimated that about 10% of all Finns are active pesäpallo players.
Over 2,600 teams play Finnish National baseball in Finland and 150 male and
126 female teams participate in the various national league matches run by
the Finnish National Baseball Association. All school children in
Finland learn to play the game as part of school curriculum.
If you want to join Pesäpallo -team in NZ send us an email with
your details
suomiseura@ihug.co.nz and we
will let you know when we have our next practice.
Jaana Jahkonen - coach who brought the
Australian pesäpallo-players to NZ.
Thanks Jaana, we had some awesome time playing with you guys!
Väärä! (False!)
So it is that first ever Pesäpallo games has been played in New Zealand. At
least the "official" Finnish Society ones. We had three different days
(also by weather) to try out what this pesäpallo is. Gavin Gosney was the
driving force in setting this thing up together with Jouni and Jaana
"Janski" Jahkonen.
First we tried by ourselves on the 17th of April at Margaret Griffin park
in Lynfield. We were approximitely fifteen people or more there then which
was absolutely great. All these Finnish flags and finnish chatting and
smile, big smiles. Smiles where seen after you cought the ball in your
glove or succeeded in batting the ball (somewhere in the field anyway).
Gavin encouraged us and I think that future players got the "idea" of the
game. We had some team spirit also cause "the aussies" where coming next
week to show us (the game and playing along with tips to couching). So
aften one afternoon of playing we were confident that we could play
"against" any aussies that dared to come around.
Week after that on the 23rd of April we saw "the aussies". Okay. They have
all the right gear: shirts, "räpylä"s and bats... Okay they have been
playing more than we.. okay.. Let's start. There were Jaana, Nakke, Alan,
Daniel, Greg and David. And boy did they throw the ball hard (try to be
guarding the second base and catch the ball coming from homebase...
outch..) and they batted just amazingly far (from the viewpoint of just
managing to hit the ball away from the homebase :) ). So I think that there
was not excactly point of playing against them and so we played with them.
And learned a lot and had good time.
We made lots of runs (juoksuja), we made "kunnari" and then we shouted
encouragement to all who made it for the first, second, third or back to
homebase. Or manage to hit the ball somewhere out of homebase. We also
shouted every Väärä we could possibly find.. You know that Väärä is every
ball not landing on the service ring (we had those white/blue mats to show
the ring). So we had a server. To serve the ball to the batter. And the
batter tried to hit the ball as far (or near) as she/he possibly could.
Basic things. And then tactics. I think that they wew not the key point not
just yet. And thanks for anyone who brought drinks and food to consume
during that day. They came in great need. And then we (of course) had to go
to a nearby pub to discuss the whole game and tell ALL the good parts and
forget the not-successful-runs etc.. That was nice and thanks for the
company everyone.
Minna
For more information about pesäpallo go to:
http://www.pesis.fi/
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pes%C3%A4pallo
Youngest members of the Pesäpallo -team.
Planning the strategy.
Photos Courtesy of Susanna
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