Czech Baseball

From SoSH

Overview

Next to Italy and the Netherlands, the Czech Republic has the strongest professional baseball presence in Europe. Professional baseball for the Czechs consists of two leagues, an eight-team major league, known as the Extra League, and a twelve-team secondary league, known as the National League. The Extra League season consists of 35 regular season games played primarily on the weekend, followed by a four-team, two-round playoff where each round is best-of-five. In recent years, this format has changed often; sometimes, six teams make the postseason, sometimes less. The most recent winner is Draci Brno, who beat Arrows Ostrava three games to one in the 2005 championship.

Much like the other European leagues, the Czech league has a system of relegation. The bottom two teams from the Extra League are grouped with the top teams from the National League (the number of National League teams varies each year), and the top two teams from this grouping are promoted to (or retained in) the Extra League.

Of the four MLB players who were born in the area formerly known as Czechoslovakia, two were born in parts outside of the modern Czech Republic, and the other two were born in parts unknown. None of the four ever played for the Red Sox.

External Links

• A difficult to navigate (partially in English) League website