':A game Filipinos should play. PESAPALLO-BASEBALL'S RIVAL BASEBALL has become a father. familiar, it is strangely distorted The wayward son of cricket has and reduced for some reason or grown up to acquire the benign other to a 50-by-40 meter rectan­ dignity of the family man. gle with an equilateral triangle Its child is a vigorous but ec­ at the bottom. centric youngster named pesapallo. And now the game begins . It makes its home in Finland, and but not without new shocks. The in the grimly athletic air of that pitcher, for instance, walks not to country it has grown until today the mound but to a point just five it is played every year by some feet away from the batter on the I 00,000 Finns in organized right side of home plate. Here he leagues and watched by many stretches his gloved hand, palm times that number. down, in the general direction of An American baseball fan goes batter's face, while the catcher­ to see his first game of pesapallo. well, there isn't any catcher. Now, The bat is long, anemic. The ball careful not to bring his right hand is yellow, cloth-covered. The higher than his motionless left, the glove looks like half a cantaloupe pitcher tosses the ball ten or 12 with webbed fingers stuck on the feet straight up in the air. Thud! edges. The players wear sweat The batter hits out a nastily suits and track shoes. The bases bounding grounder past the short­ are six feet wide and home plate stop. But hey, why doesn't he is 20 feet wide--all the bases be­ run? Well, he has decided he will ing mere semi-circles marked on not be able to beat out the second the ground in white chalk. The baseman's throw-in, and so he calm, silent umpires dress in street stands leaning on his bat, cheer­ clothes and signal their decisions fully awaiting another pitch. modestly with a wave of a fan That's his privilege! that has an "X" painted on one Luckily for our spectator's peace side. But the great surprise is the of mind, the batter is allowed only field itself. Though disturbingly two such options. On the third 48 PANORAMA hit he must run whether he thinks out, merely makes him lose his he can get to first base or not. But turn at bat. But for the most part all this is only a prelude to greater the game will be normal baseball, things. Our unfortunate fan must and pretty good baseball at that. now stare, all but hypnotized, But why all these fantastic va­ while a batter who has just rapped riations? Because Lauri Pihkala out a tasty Texas leaguer streaks deemed them necessary to adapt down the third-base line, pulling the game to Finnish conditions up with a great screaming of and to remove the defects unno­ brakes halfway between home plate ticed by the love-blinded Amer­ and third, where kind caprice has ican addict. This wiry, cheerful, located first base. Nightmarish as and pungent-tongued Finn is the this scene is the first time you see father of pesapallo. Before the it, it at least marks the end of World War he lived in the United the dizzying departures from true States and spent much of his time baseball, and if our man has been studying baseball with the cold eye able to last this long, the rest will of a practical athlete. He wanted be easy. Once he has mastered the to introduce the game into Fin­ fact that second base is situated on land; he liked it because it was a tht> site of the American first base, sport everyone could play with that the American second base has little expense, and because it de­ gone on to a better world, and that veloped the whole body and trained third base clings to its old fam­ muscles that could be used in many iliar position, he can enjoy watch­ other sports. He felt, however, ing the game. that the game as played in the Minor pertubations will crop "States" and Canada had traveled up now and then, it is true. There in the wrong direction for his is a lean sort of barber pole stick­ purposes. ing up where the third-base coach­ It had become, for one thing, ing box ought to be, around which far too much of an exclusive pitch­ the runner must go on his way er-batter duel, which was great from third to home; there is an for the spectators but hard on the overgenerous rule which allows a players. During 90 per cent of man who has hit a triple to go on the game, Mr. Pihkala noticed, home unmolested; and a caught half the players used no more mus­ fly, instead of putting the hitter cles than were necessary to lift AUGUST, 1939 49 them from their traditional stoop nowhere in that land is there a and jog them back to the bench. field large enough for a conven­ \Vhile this was going on, the tional ball park, a.nd the cost of pitcher solemnly and deliberately levelling such large plots would "burned out" his arm in a few be prohibitive-pesapallo is still on years and, unless he was smarter an amateur footing_ only-so that than most, retired to a dignified l\1r. Pihkala was forced to cut old age as first-base coach for the­ down the size of the field. The Pumpkin Center Terriers. position of the bases grew out. of Mr. Pihkala could not quite this limitation. The ball had to see the logic of all this, and he be made rather dead, to keep it also looked with unfeigned horror in the small park, and hence the. on the epidemic of torn ligaments, batter, with five infielders all but sprained ankles, and spiked calves stepping on his toes, could scarcely that resulted from the practice of be asked to run all the way down sliding into bases. Swayed thus to the American first base. Short­ by both practical and humanita­ ening the first-base line then made rian motives, he proceed to evolve American second base too far from the first two fundamental changes: first, and so many dozens of com­ ( 1) he moved the pitcher up to binations had to be tried out be­ home plate and made him feed the fore the present satisfactory one ball to the batter gently, provid­ was hit upon in 1922. ing him with exercise by letting Pesapallo is a very fast, very him take over the catcher's field­ brainy game. Baseball, it is true, ing duties; ( 2) he allowed the makes plenty of use of clear, fast runners to overrun the bases as thinking, but pesapallo demands much as they pleased, and, by for­ this and more. Batting in pesa­ bidding the runner to go back to pallo, for example, has become a base once he left it on a hit-and­ much more than a matter of swing run, he made it unnecessary for the and pray; the mild pitching en­ baseman to touch the runner, elim­ ables the batter to place his hits inating by these moves all the within a few feet of where he necessity for sliding. wants them, and the strategy of The other changes in the game this placing is constantly influenced rose primarily from Finland's to­ by the shifting positions of the base pographical knobbiness. Almost runners and the fielders. The 50 PANORAMA fielders, meanwhile, must be think­ spread out before him, he is in a ing one jump ahead of the batter, natural position to coordinate the and figure out, chess fashion, just strategy and lend a helping hand where he is going to hit. to the boys out yonder, which en­ Pesapallo's greater speed is de­ thusiastically he does with a run­ manded, of course, by the small ning fire of comment that can be size of the park, the crowded in­ heard for five city blocks. The field, and the short distance to actual pitching, it is true, is pret­ first base, and when this speed is ty undramatic, as the ball must combined with good, foresighted leave the pitcher's hand even with strategy on the part of the batters his shoulder, and be thrown so that and fielders, smart and dazzling it will land on a wooden plate t\.Vo play becomes almost a common­ feet in diameter. This leaves, as place. For the spectator it is a you might guess, pitifully little slightly different dazzle, however, scope for trickery. These changes from that of baseball; to the sheer in the pitcher's status mean that he pleasure of watching clever field­ is no longer the tender link on ing and heads-up base running is which the fate of the entire team added the suspense of trying to depends, but the field general of a guess what the batter is guessing balanced group all of whose mem­ about what the fielders are guess­ bers bear an equal responsibility ing about him. This ·terrific men­ for success or failure. tal strain, unfortunately, produces Finns who learned to play ball a hush-hush atmosphere in the in America, and have since gone stands slightly reminiscent of that back to the old country, report that surrounding a chess match. Pro­ once you get used to pesapallo's vided you do not need a yelling few eccentricities you like the game crowd to intensify your thrills for better than the American version.