Baseball on Independence Day: could this be Kyiv? (07/05/98)

Baseball on Independence Day: could this be Kyiv?

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - On a well-worn vacant lot, the coach instructs his young recruits to put the bases out and start warming up. While the catcher dons his gear, some players begin tossing a baseball about. Others grab bats and swing them around, imitating the stances of their favorite major league players.

The scene could be repeated in Scott City, Neb., or Tacoma, Wash., or Greenwood, S.C. - basically anywhere in the United States where youngsters gather to play organized baseball - and it would be a familiar one.

But this is not the home of apple pie and Chevrolet. This is Kyiv, Ukraine.

And when the coach calls his players in to begin their practice session, he does it in Russian (it's that language problem again), not in English.

At first glance, however, you could not tell the difference between these 13- and 14-year-old sandlot players practicing on the banks of the Dnipro River and their U.S. counterparts: they swing the bat and throw the ball like any American kid growing up with Mark McGwire or Ken Griffey Jr. as their heroes. For the Ukrainian kids, too, these are the heroes.

"Ken Griffey is my favorite," said Zhenia Tkachenko, a 14-year-old pitcher for the Atma Sports Club of Kyiv, whose team practices on a field that faces the winding Dnipro River. "I like him because at a crucial time in a game he comes up with the game-winning home run."

His teammate, 12-year-old Ihor Kuzhnevsky, named George Bell as his favorite, even though the former Toronto Blue Jay has been retired for several years.

The kids have discovered the sport through word of mouth and through television, especially on the Europsport Channel, which is shown on Ukraine's fledgling cable television system.

Anton Gidynych, 14, catcher for the Atma team, said any American sport excites him. "This is an exotic sport. I simply like American sports like football and baseball. I watch baseball all the time when they show it on television."

Another Atma player, 15-year-old Artem Voloshyn, said a friend brought him out to the practice field. "I like this game - especially when the bases are loaded and I'm up to bat," said Artem Voloshyn. "and I hit the home run that wins the game."

Ukraine, and especially Kyiv, has seen a steady if not spectacular rise in the popularity of America's national pastime since independence.

Olympics were impetus

Baseball was introduced to Ukraine and the rest of what was then the Soviet Union in 1986, after the International Olympic Committee decided that baseball would be a demonstration sport beginning with the 1988 Olympics.

Dmytro Matsulevych, baseball director of the Atma Sports Club and coach of its youth teams, said he was recruited to take up the sport in 1986 by the newly created baseball federation. "The Soviet Union at the time made a decision to develop baseball, but they didn't know how to do it," explained Mr. Matsulevych, "so they asked handball, volleyball and track and field athletes to volunteer."

Mr. Matsulevych, who was a 24-year-old run-of-the-mill 400-meter hurdler at the time, decided to attempt the crossover.

"Coaches who did not know a thing about baseball taught us from books they had received in the West," said Mr. Matsulevych. "They didn't have any idea how to play baseball, much less teach it, and were so inept that they taught us how to do basic things in different ways on different days."

He said that things got straightened out after Cubans who were studying in the Soviet Union were asked to train the teams. Baseball's popularity in Cuba is at least on a par with the U.S.

In the end, the Soviet Union never did become a baseball powerhouse, but the sport did take hold in the republics.

Today, dozens of teams and several leagues exist in Ukraine in several age brackets, which compete nationally and internationally. Ukraine has competed well with the rest of Europe. In 1997 in Hull, England, Ukraine's squad of 16- to 18-year-old took the class B championships for the second time. Previously, it had won in Slovenia in 1994.

According to Coach Matsulevych, 13 youth leagues currently operate in Ukraine, from Rivne in the west to Sumy in the east. The sport is most widespread in Kyiv, which has four leagues, followed by Kirovohrad and Symferopol with two each. The Kyiv league, to which Atma belongs, last year became the first Ukrainian league registered with Little League Baseball headquartered in Williamsport, Pa.

Ukraine's youth leagues are broken down into three age brackets: 10-12 - little league; 13-15 - junior league; 16-18 - senior league. The teams play for a national championship after their interleague play concludes. They travel to neighboring countries, such as Moldova and Russia, for tournaments, and a Ukrainian all-star team participates in the yearly European Championships.

New York connection

Mr. Matsulevych has built up the Kyiv league that Atma competes in with his wife, Marina, and with much help from Basil Tarasko, a Ukrainian American from New York who has helped with everything from financing equipment to training and organizational work.

In 1994, Mr. Tarasko helped establish the first Kyiv league with the help of a $2,000 grant from Rawlings, the sports equipment manufacturer.

Today the teams that participate in the league find their own financing for equipment and facilities. The Atma Sports Club that supports Mr. Matsulevych's teams was once solely concerned with boxing. But that changed after Coach Matsulevych took Atma's president, Dmytro Mantulin, to watch the kids practice.

"I did not understand the sport at first," said Mr. Mantulin. "They hit the ball and run, what's the point?"

"But after Marina explained the rules, I really began to enjoy it," he added.

He said he feels that children need organized sports and that since the dissolution of the Soviet Union kids have few places to turn for organized competition.

Mr. Mantulin hopes to turn the rut-covered plot of land that the Obolon District council of Kyiv has given the team into a baseball complex, with stands for 400 to 500 fans, a café and a picnic area.

That fits nicely into Coach Matsulevych's concept of what his teams are all about. He believes that baseball should be a family affair. Marina, his wife, calls the program "Mommy, Daddy and Me."

"It's not only to get the kids off the street, but to get the family doing things together," said Mrs. Matsulevych, who is the administrative director of baseball for the Atma Sports Club. She said the parents are not only encouraged to attend games, but to help build the fields on which the children play and to participate in fund-raising.

The families are also encouraged to travel together for inter-city competitions, and if possible to tournaments in other countries.

The Matsulevyches are currently organizing a fan club as well. "It is important. It will give people the ability to come out and have a good time and to support us as well," said Mrs. Matsulevych.

Many of the ideas that Mrs. Matsulevych is incorporating are a result of a cooperative effort between the Kyiv league and the U.S.-based Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). The YMCA-Ukraine has been involved with the Kyiv league since 1994 and has offered financial and consultative support. They helped send some of the young Kyiv ballplayers on a two-week cultural exchange and baseball camp called the YMCA Youth Baseball Exchange, which was held in April in Sarasota, Fla.

Mr. Matsulevych said that a visit from Sarasota-area little leaguers is now in the works, which the YMCA-Ukraine is hoping to organize during the Independence Day celebrations in Ukraine in August.

Baseball on Independence Day - now that's starting to really look like baseball American-style.