|||

Postcards from Vimpeli

I traveled to Vimpeli, Finland for pesäpallo playoff game. Vimpeli, who are two years removed from back-to-back Finnish championships were taking on the defending champs from Joensuu, about 4.5 hours to the east. As this was the third game of the best-of-five series, tensions at Saarikenttä — Vimpeli’s home ballpark — were high.

Because Saarikenttä is built on an island, it produces unparalleled drama when the ball gets hit into the creek, where it’s still considered in play.

A few years ago, I first wrote about my Finnish baseball story. Over the years, it’s evolved from something I’d talk about at parties, to something my friends tell strangers when I first meet them. It usually leads to rabbit hole of follow-up questions:

  • Wait, they play baseball in Finland?”
  • Why are all the bases in the wrong direction?”
  • How did you find it?” This is crazy!?”

I’d been watching Pesäpallo off and on for almost a decade. Even before I wrote about it, I’d learned about this odd Finnish variant of our national pastime and found myself transfixed.

Until a few years ago, it was still quite difficult to get any information about the game in English. It’s still not the easiest sport to follow from abroad if you’re not a Finnish speaker, but social media — specifically the Superpesis (Finnish MLB) embrace of it — has improved things dramatically.

So what’s a Finnish baseball game like? Well it’s faster-paced than our baseball, but it’s not speedier at all. Games are divided into two 4-inning double headers. If you win both, the match is over. If you split the series, there’s a 9th inning tiebreaker. If you’re still tied, there’s a penalty-kicks” style scoring contest where pairs of 5 batter-runner groups attempt to score a run to break the tie. (Needless to say, I never felt more America in finding this part of the game a really unsatisfying way to end a long contest)

At the end of the day, Pesäpallo is really just baseball. Seeing it close didn’t dissuade me from that notion. Sure, the pitching is way different. But it’s still got a lot of nuance to it. Pesäpallo is also a game where every pitch does count, but I’ve described baseball as an opera” at times, and Pesäpallo has similar arcs that a baseball fan would appreciate once you know the rules.

It was very rewarding to finally get to see a game live. To witness it at the home stadium of my favorite team — even though they lost — still had a lot of meaning. I caught up with two of the people who first helped me learn about the game, answering my questions about the sport online. It was a very full circle moment.

The first trip won’t be my last. Pesäpallo is such a unique way to experience Finland. Driving 4.5 hours each way to watch a game was a really fun way to do something off the tourist path. I’m looking forward to visiting for years to come.

Possibly more!

Up next On lineups, ladders & high school tennis The conventional wisdom of most high school coaches (and college ones too) is the best way to determine a lineup is using head-to-head challenge Back to blogging again? One of the things that’s been weird about the 2010s was how all of us who used to blog a lot stopped and transferred our content to places like
Latest posts Dismantling Things Takes Time What I’ve learned about posting in a post-Twitter world Rushing into the elevator to avoid saying hello Wrote about that one time I was a game designer On AI and Care On House Rules Robbed of thoughts Civil Futures and the speculative present Using a AAAA major league + winter major league to develop fringe prospects Why the pricing out of youth sports so personal 8 Arenas of Action Matrix Assessing the worthiness of posting in the AI era On social media platforms & separation of concerns Why we ought to be (civil) cartographers, not “experience” designers Bringing (advanced) stats to junior tennis Measuring the impact of (design) consequences Service design wasn’t designed to serve everybody On Putting Yourself Out There On Rage Tweets, Reddit & the painful silence of a post-twitter world Notes from the age of disengagement Bifurcated modalities The endless cycle of blogging Why I keep coaching A Parliament of Neighbors On art & design motivating-or-setting-realistic-goals-when-your-team-loses-a-lot American History Booklist Back to blogging again? Postcards From Vimpeli On lineups, ladders & high school tennis the-designers-share-of-the-problem