Wild Pitch

practice was ending, and several youngsters, baseball gloves in tow, trotted across the dirt infield outside Public School 975 toward the third-base dugout. Yet no sooner had their coach, Pavel Gladikov, called it a day on the diamond than he was verbally broadsided by a man leaning against the backstop. The spectator had been silently watching the practice, biding his time until he could get the coach’s full attention. Their rapid-fire exchange quickly morphed from conversation to tirade in plain view of the players, who soaked in every syllable of the diversion.

In the major and minor leagues, the spectacle of grown men jawing nose to nose near home plate is as old as the game, but it’s doubtful even baseball lifers ever heard a fusillade like this. When it was over, a bewildered bystander bounded up to Gladikov, the man in charge of the Svyatogor 975 baseball club, to ask what had happened. Gladikov explained that the onlooker was berating him for having the gall to teach Russian children this American sport. The coach beamed, his wry rehash containing no trace of the pugnacity he’d shown in dealing with the hothead.

Such doggedness is vital for the small collective of baseball devotees in a country where most people wouldn’t mind a bit if the game vanished like a Siberian summer.

Years later, though, Gladikov said he had no recollection whatsoever of that day. “I have arguments like that with all sorts of people about twice a week,” he said. “I always tell everyone that baseball is derived from lapta, which was first mentioned 700 years ago. Most [Russians] are thoroughly supportive of kids taking up a worthwhile sport, but nobody ever screams about soccer being invented by the British, skiing by the Swedes, or gymnastics by the Germans.”

Baseball historians would contest Gladikov’s claim about lapta, but that’s beside the point. He goes with whatever works. And he has to sell this unappreciated game – in a calmer tone – to parents and bureaucrats skeptical for reasons other than antipathy toward the United States: equipment is expensive and difficult to obtain; the rules are complicated; the game bores them; Russian prospects for success are poor. The Russian government’s interest waned further still when baseball was dropped as an Olympic sport ahead of the 2012 London games. Yet Gladikov and his cadre soldier on.

The former Red Army tank maintenance specialist found his second career in 1986, after reading a newspaper article saying the Soviet sports machine wanted to develop baseball and lapta. He called the USSR’s Olympic Committee and inquired about the rules of both sports, then started training with some like-minded co-workers. A year later, he assembled a team and entered the coaching ranks. That was a prelude to 1989, when he embarked on his first of 59 trips to the US to begin his baseball apprenticeship. As Gladikov racked up air miles and understanding of the game’s nuances, he developed relationships with instructors, scouts, and equipment vendors – pretty much anyone who could help turn his ragtag bunch into a ballclub.

Nearly 30 years on, it seems unimaginable that those Soviet sports officials could have stumbled across a more apt respondent than Gladikov. With his portly build, bushy mustache and stentorian voice, he cuts a managerial figure tailor-made for the diamond. He often punctuates his speech, both in and out of baseball settings, with facial theatrics or expansive gesticulations, and he doesn’t hesitate to indulge in silliness to keep the mood light. Even so, the vestiges of his Soviet upbringing are evident when he scolds players or opines about what he considers the sugar-coating tendencies of his American counterparts, particularly their penchant for saying “good job” and offering other forms of praise, deserved or not.

Today, Muscovites hear baseball sales pitches from three Gladikov family voices, not just one. Inna Lebedeva, Gladikov’s wife, assists at most practices and keeps score at games, while keeping tabs on their two boys, both Atlanta Braves fans like their dad.

Yulian Gladikov, Pavel’s youngest son from his first marriage, completes the trio. As a physical education teacher in the neighboring suburb of Zyablikovo, the younger Gladikov occupies a prime position for filling the baseball pipeline. He inherited his father’s outgoing nature and cheerful persona, but not his propensity to yell. His even keel does have limits, though. “If you don’t think I scream around kids, you should see me in a gym full of first-graders,” he joked.

In the mid-1990s, hints of an imminent breakout were stirring in Russian baseball as the fraternity that Gladikov had assembled began yielding tangible results. Catcher Andrei Selivanov joined the Atlanta Braves’ minor league system around that time, and though he played only one season in rookie ball, he returned to Russia with professional experience and founded a team that grew up alongside Gladikov’s. The two teams maintained a close partnership throughout, sharing Public School 975’s facilities even after they formally split.

Further validation came in 2001, when Oleg Korneev, a 6-foot-7 right-handed pitcher from Moscow, signed a professional contract with the Seattle Mariners. Korneev’s father was regarded as the best baseball player in Russia, so the bloodlines were there – along with a 91 mph fastball that caught a scout’s eye during a Russian All-Star Team’s tour of the US. Korneev became the tenth Russian to sign a professional contract with an American squad. But none of those nine predecessors carried the hopes of his country’s baseball program to the extent that Korneev did.*

Something was brewing in the youth ranks, too. The same year that Korneev inked his contract, a team of 11- and 12-year-olds from Moscow’s Khovrino Little League inaugurated a run of three consecutive appearances at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, an event televised around the world. Russia joined traditional baseball powerhouses like Japan, Taiwan, Mexico and Venezuela in the international bracket. The 2003 team defeated Guam, and the 2001 team achieved the distinction of having one of the few girls to play in the Little League World Series, 12-year-old Tatiana Maltseva.

“My most vivid memory was the welcoming attitude people showed our team,” said Yury Kuzmin, a coach on the 2001 squad. “And of course I remember President Bush’s visit. We were sitting right in front of him; I was 10 feet away from him. The people who watched our kids play gave them a huge number of gifts.”

Russia’s run at Williamsport was interrupted in 2004, but the following year, the Brateyevo Little League started its own string of three straight showings. Although Brateyevo didn’t win a game in those three years, the players acquitted themselves well, considering they were up against countries whose baseball histories spanned generations. With six appearances in the tournament in seven years, Russian youth baseball had arrived.

But then, just as suddenly, everything started to unravel. Both Khovrino and Brateyevo were dissolved, and the remaining six-team league folded last year, because the Russian Baseball Federation’s decision to focus on player development for national teams was incompatible with Little League’s boundaries-based philosophy. A Little League spokesman did say the organization remains on good terms with the Russian baseball leadership, and there is talk of reviving Little League in Russia if circumstances allow. Meanwhile, Korneev developed arm trouble and was forced to retire after a brief career. He played two years in the Mariners’ farm system and made it as high as A ball, but, back in Moscow, he developed a drug habit that eventually robbed him of his life. Two more Russian pitchers, unrelated lefties Andrei and Nikolai Lobanov, followed Korneev and also maxed out at A ball in the Minnesota Twins system. Despite the flashes of promise, Russia has yet to push through to the baseball big time, and a number of its leading lights were extinguished.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Russian ballplayers’ favorite pro teams tend to be ones whose colors include red: the Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, and Cleveland Indians among them. Gladikov’s Svyatogor and Spartak players often sport Cincinnati Reds caps for two reasons: the teams both have red-and-white uniforms, and the Reds’ stylized letter-C logo closely mirrors the Russian teams’ symbol. But the St. Louis Cardinals might boast the largest following among Russians.

The St. Louis fan club in Russia includes Yulian Gladikov and 13-year-old Anton Trusov, one of the top players on the Svyatogor 975 squad and a true baseball enthusiast who has endured extraordinary adversity. “I shudder to think what Anton would be up to if he didn’t have baseball in his life,” his coach said. When Anton was 10, his father killed his mother in a drunken fit in the family’s Brateyevo apartment while Anton was in an adjoining room.

The Gladikov brigade sprang to Anton’s aid. His teammates and their parents banded together to remodel his grandmother’s apartment to make it a suitable place for him to live. It was as gratifying as anything Gladikov’s teams had ever accomplished on the field. With the ability to focus on his favorite sport, Anton has blossomed into a ballplayer who Gladikov thinks has a fine future. For his part, Anton focuses mostly on the enjoyment that baseball gives him.

He keeps his aspirations modest, saying he just wants to make the national team for his age group and win a championship. He said his favorite memory is hitting a home run, and the thing he likes most about baseball is that he gets to hit as well as throw. Gladikov and Lebedeva hope that, if they can expand Anton’s horizons, his dreams will expand, too. Given his precarious family situation and the pressures that result from it, enrichment opportunities abroad have been rare, but Gladikov seems determined to ensure that Anton doesn’t miss out on the best that baseball can offer a disadvantaged kid.

Anyone who wants to experience the feeling of donning Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility should play baseball in Russia. The Brateyevo and Khovrino Little Leaguers who played their way to Williamsport received no domestic media attention, a far cry from their American counterparts, whose heroics can propel them to celebrity status. The Mariners’ signing of Korneev prompted a lengthy write-up in The New York Times, but outside Russian baseball circles his name remains unknown to even cosmopolitan Muscovites. Lebedeva said recently that when she polled the youngest Svyatogor team to find out how many kids had asked their parents to pay the 400 rubles (less than $10) for a satellite feed of major league games, the answer was zero.

Russians’ aloofness toward baseball has combined with the general lack of philanthropic culture to put another wall in Gladikov’s way. During his American travels, he sees time and again the unflinching willingness of American business owners to sponsor teams. Uniforms often prominently display the name of the sponsoring business, and outfield fences are papered with ads announcing that the donor is a proud sponsor of the local youth program.

That mentality is largely absent among Russians with money to spend. When Gladikov has sought sponsors for his teams and other baseball ventures, the stock response he gets is essentially: “Where is the profit potential in that?” Persuading well-heeled Russians to shell out money on a sport with such a tiny following and no tangible return on investment has proved more difficult than winning over reluctant parents. Typically, when a Russian high roller splurges on a sports team, the largess is motivated by conspicuous consumption rather than altruism.

In consequence, Russia’s baseball advocates must cast a worldwide net for benefactors. They found an especially generous one in the late Dr. Shigeyoshi Matsumae, the founder and longtime rector of Tokai University in Japan, who gifted a baseball stadium to Moscow State University. Opened in 1990, the stadium remains the only one of its kind in the country and the crown jewel of Russian baseball venues. Gladikov and his confreres have spent the subsequent 25 years stretching that network of individuals and organizations abroad to build up the support they lacked at home.

Local donors are finally showing some interest. In such an unfriendly setting, though, the progress is measured in baby steps. This year’s Victory Day tournament in Brateyevo attracted two Russian sponsors and one top local official. One sponsor donated snacks, the other backpacks; the head of the Brateyevo District’s local government handed out the awards.

For many years, the diamond at Public School 975 was little more than a sandlot, and anyone looking down on it from nearby apartments could be pardoned for wondering why a sane person would make a fuss over a giant patch of dirt. But, as one of only eight or so baseball fields in all of Moscow, this is almost sacred ground for the Gladikovs and other boosters, one of whom was the school’s former principal, Yury Pimenov. A forward-thinking educator whose son Sergei was a catcher on Selivanov’s team, Pimenov stood as a staunch ally of the program and his school’s baseball field throughout his tenure.

Shortly before Pimenov’s departure, Brateyevo’s local administrators and school officials announced a renovation project that would result in a new soccer field and improvements to the baseball field. The joyous news soon turned into one of those only-in-Russia sorts of debacles that boggle outsiders’ minds. It should have been a quick, straightforward installation: turf to carpet the outfield and covered bleachers to seat spectators. The grandstands proceeded as planned and turned out nicely. Not so, however, when the project moved to the playing surface.

“The work lasted two years,” Lebedeva said. “Considering that there isn’t a single construction company in Russia that does baseball fields or has any idea what they are, Pasha [Gladikov] would go to the field every day to make sure they didn’t ruin anything. It was summer, and we couldn’t go anywhere. The workers were Armenians from a firm that had taken on three or four projects around Brateyevo, and they just ran all over the field with their shovels.

“Then, the following year, a different company took the job but did it just as badly. Once again, Pasha gave them instructions every day. But there was one day we didn’t get there in time, and the crew knocked down our pitcher’s mound because they decided it needed to be ‘leveled off.’ Pasha gave them a piece of his mind, because we had put a lot of effort into building our mound.”

Gladikov and Lebedeva have been relentless in their criticism of Pimenov’s successor. They went from having a working partner to nearly constant friction. To make matters worse, the new principal gave preferential treatment to the soccer field and even suggested that the school get rid of baseball altogether. The pro-baseball side prevailed, however, and the improved field now looks unmistakably like a baseball diamond. One of Gladikov’s ambitions is to find Americans interested in reciprocating baseball trips. If the work in Brateyevo can be replicated at Moscow’s other baseball fields, the city might start to look like a tempting baseball destination.

Dima Shtykher and Vlad Matsynin heard about baseball from their grandmothers. In a society that prizes connections, the benefits of having a well-connected grandma are not to be underestimated, even for kids in places as far removed from Moscow’s baseball fields as Nakhodka. Shtykher, a native of that coastal city in the Russian Far East, might be the heir apparent to Korneev. The rangy righty was the MVP of a European league last year and will spend three months in the American Midwest this summer, playing for the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters, a collegiate summer team. His pitching coach there will be John Halama, a former big leaguer who had his best seasons with none other than the Seattle Mariners.

“When I was 6 years old, my dad asked his mom to find me a sport of some kind, because I was a really rambunctious kid,” Shtykher said. “My grandmother had a lot of sports acquaintances in Nakhodka. The baseball coaches were older fellas on a team she followed, so she got me involved in baseball just in time for my birthday. It’s a sport that combines thinking and physical exertion, and that’s what I like about baseball.”

Fifteen-year-old Matsynin has lived in Brateyevo his entire life. Unlike Shtykher, he didn’t pick up a baseball glove until recently. But he definitely knows how not to follow the herd in choosing a pastime. Besides baseball, Matsynin devotes hours to skateboarding, another activity sufficiently subversive to qualify as “unbecoming” of Russians, which poses a challenge to adequate outfitting.

“I remember the moment I started taking part in the activities with the older kids,” he said. “Prior to that, I had been working out with guys younger than me, because I came to baseball at 14, which is pretty late. At practices they were throwing change-ups and curve balls, and I couldn’t understand how that was possible. I thought the guys were performing a magic trick on the ball.”

He saw even more pitching wizardry while facing American kids in Jacksonville, Florida, last fall, a trip that was topped off by a game against the varsity squad of the Bolles School, the alma mater of Atlanta Braves legend Chipper Jones. In addition, he discovered some of the fringe benefits of being affiliated with Gladikov. He bought a personalized Los Angeles Dodgers hat, stocked up on skateboarding gear, and went trick-or-treating with teammates. For Halloween they dressed up as a Russian baseball team.

Now it’s Shtykher’s turn to bring his game to the US, and his excitement has as much octane as a 95-mph fastball. After a couple of years on Selivanov’s squad, he dreams that playing in America will lead to a pro contract. Eagerly following his exploits from afar will be his 12-year-old brother Andrei, who emulates Dima in every respect. Andrei followed Dima into baseball and sports a buzz-cut like his brother’s. Both root for the Kansas City Royals and never tire of talking about their favorite sport, which both say is the focal point of their lives.

At 6-foot-3 and 180 pounds, Shtykher has solid command of four pitches, and as his 19-year-old frame fills out, he might add some zip to his fastball. That could very well bring his second objective – reaching the majors – closer to his grasp. Shtykher admits to being superstitious, and, given that baseball runs rampant with oddball beliefs and practices, he is in his element. True to form, he’s keeping his latest adventure under wraps to avoid bad luck.

“I would say that Russian baseball players are very unpredictable,” Shtykher said. “They can be down the entire game and then gather their strength and come back and win in the bottom of the ninth inning. Our players are very goal-oriented. As the saying goes, if there’s a target, we’ll hit it.” RL

* Selivanov, Korneev and others were featured in a May 2000 article in Russian Life about baseball in Russia.

Ballpark Lingo, Russian Style

Russian baseball terminology borrows much from English, and many words and phrases are transliterated rather than translated. These include strike, out, shortstop, dugout, bunt, double play and infield fly. But in several facets of the game, Russians have coined their own unique ways of expressing things. For example, a player backing up a base in case of an errant throw is страховка, which more commonly means insurance.

When an American coach tells a player, “Grab your glove,” he’s referring to the sturdy hand covering used to catch the ball. In Russian, this is referred to as a ловушка, which in non-baseball contexts means “trap” or “snare” (or, figuratively, a “pitfall”). The annual Gold Glove Award in the major leagues is золотая ловушка. In baseball contexts, the Russian word for glove, перчатка, refers to a batting glove – in other words, a glove worn by a player on offense, not defense.

Another interesting departure appears in the setup of a relay. English speakers call the player who receives the initial throw the “cutoff man.” In Russian, that person is маяк, the word for a lighthouse or beacon.

In the case of tagging someone out, Russian directly translates the word as салить, the same verb that applies in the children’s game of the same name. The verb comes from the noun сало, meaning “lard,” which is the unfortunate designation children give to the person who is tagged.

The pitching rubber is the планка, and the catcher crouches behind home plate, or домашняя база. Here again a lexical caveat is in order. In English, “to catch” can refer to either catching the ball or playing the position of catcher. The latter sense is rendered in Russian as сидеть на кетчере, which literally means “to sit at catcher.”

Among the safety equipment worn by the catcher is a chest protector, or нагрудник (“breastplate” or “bib”). He also wears shin guards, щитки, and a protective cup, which Russians whimsically call a ракушка, meaning “seashell.”

The fastball, the slider, and the change-up are transliterated, but the curve ball is often called крючок (“fish hook”) and the split-finger a вилка (fork).

Hitting and running the bases are отбивание and бег по базам, respectively. Although baseball players score “runs” in English, in Russian they rack up очка (“points”). The batter, who goes by бьющий and бэттер in the Russian game, tries to hit the ball on the bat’s sweet spot, the мясо (“meat”). A home run, which is transliterated хоум ран, entitles the batter to circle the bases, обежать базы.

A ground ball is ролинг and a fly ball is флай; Russian does not seem to have a succinct translation for a line drive. Also, the verb used in hitting scenarios varies according to context, so choosing between отбивать and выбивать can require some situational practice.

Other information about baseball in Russia is available on a number of websites. Here are a few useful ones:

Moscow State Univ. baseball site: pro-baseball.ru

Russian Baseball Federation: baseballrussia.ru

Moi Beisbol, run by Pavel Gladikov: mybaseball.ru

Baseball Club: baseballclub.ru