USSR national baseball team

The Federation of Baseball, Softball and Russian Lapta of the USSR was formed on August 13, 1987 and a year later joined the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) .

On August 15, 1987, the USSR national team held their first friendly match. Her opponent was the second national team of Nicaragua. The meeting is expected to end with a major victory for baseball players from Central America with a score of 22: 0. On September 26 of the same year, Soviet baseball players scored their first victory at the Lokomotiv stadium in Tbilisi , beating Czechoslovakia’s national team 5: 4. Later there were a lot of friendly matches involving the USSR national team, but it only entered the official international arena in 1990.

From July 20 to August 5, 1990, the second Goodwill Games were held in Seattle ( USA ), the program of which included baseball. Among the participants of the baseball tournament was the USSR national team. The Soviet team played 5 games and lost all of them - in the group round of the USA 0:17, Mexico 1: 9, Japan 0:14, in the playoffs for 5-8 places Puerto Rico 0:13 and Mexico 4:14. The USSR team included 20 baseball players representing 7 clubs: Yevgeny Puchkov, Sergey Korolev, Stepan Rubanov, Ilya Anokhov, Andrey Krupenchenkov, German Gulbit, Leonid Korneev (all Moscow Art Technical Institute ) , Ilya Bogatyryov, Sergey Zhigalov, Andrey Popov, Timur Trifonenkov , Vadim Kulakov, Dmitry Shlyapnikov, Igor Makhambitov (all - SKA-29 Balashikha ) , Yuri Neskoromny ("Bytovik" Kiev ) , Victor Kemin ("Docker" Odessa ) , Andrey Kuzich ("Photon" Simferopol ) , Alexander Buyanov ("Ussuriyskie Tigers " Vladivostok ) , Koba Kavelashvili, Nugzar Popkhadze (both -" Iveri i » Tbilisi ) ^{[1] [2]} . Headed the team coach of the Moscow Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology Alexander Ardatov.

At the end of August of the same year, the USSR national team played in the Italian Parma in Group B of the European Championship and confidently took the first place, securing participation in 1991 in the main division of the European Championship - Group A. At the preliminary stage, Soviet baseball players beat teams of Switzerland 9: 1, Poland 29: 3 and Czechoslovakia 12: 6, in the semifinals - Yugoslavia 15: 3, and in the final - the German team 8: 1 ^[3] .

In 1991, the USSR national team took part in two official tournaments. The first of these was the Intercontinental Cup , which was held from 2 to 13 July in Barcelona, ​​Spain . With only one victory (over France 11: 5) and 8 times losing ( Spain 1: 9, Taiwan 0:14, Nicaragua 1: 7, Mexico 1:12, Japan 0:26, Cuba 1:11, Italy 5:15 and South Korea 0:11), the Soviet team took the penultimate - 9th - place ^{[4] [5]} .

A month later, the USSR team made its debut among the 8 strongest teams in Europe at the continental championship held in Italy . In their preliminary round group, the Soviet team lost to Italy 0:10, France 10:11 and Sweden 4: 7. In the consolation tournament for 5-8 places, Soviet baseball players scored 4 wins (over Belgium 14: 5, Sweden 6: 4. Great Britain 10: 0 and 15: 8) with one loss (from Belgium 3: 4) and were able to take the final 6- th position ^[6] . The story of the USSR baseball team is over. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, its national teams were formed in its former republics, including the Russian national team .

In total, the USSR national team has 27 official matches held in competitions under the auspices of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and the European Baseball Confederation (CEB) , as well as in the framework of the Goodwill Games . 10 of them won, 17 lost.

European Championships

Intercontinental Cup

Goodwill Games

As part of the official tournaments, the USSR national team met with the national teams of 19 countries.

• Russian national baseball team

• Official site of the Russian Baseball Federation
• The history of baseball in the USSR