Pesäpallo

Pesäpallo is a derivative of baseball formed by Finnish Professor Lauri Pihkala in 1922. Pihkala had seen baseball in the US and figured that people in Finland wanted a faster-paced game; he adjusted the baseball rules. The pitcher stands closer to the batter than in baseball and the bases are progressively further apart, in a zig-zag line. While officials in the USSR deemed baseball too American during the Cold War, they accepted Pesäpallo, which developed a following in Estonia. The game has also been played in Japan, Australia and Germany, but Finland remained the hotbed. A Pesäpallo exhibition was held at the 1952 Olympics. As of the 1980s, The New York Times estimated that 300,000 Finns played Pesäpallo. In 2013, the Pesäpallo federation merged with the Finnish Baseball and Softball Federation.

Sources: Baseball in Europe by Josh Chetwynd, Mister-Baseball

Further Reading

• Michael Clair: "There's a pitcher, a batter ... even a river sometimes. Welcome to Finnish baseball", mlb.com, August 1, 2024. [1]