On the Games: Homer at the Bat

The Wall Street Journal
August 18, 2004

By Stefan Fatsis

Athens—The four unlikeliest words I’ve heard in my Hellenic life?

“Leading off for Greece . . .”

I smiled as they came over the loudspeakers in a building I’d never imagined in the homeland: a baseball stadium. And a beautiful one, with a glorious view beyond the outfield walls of the Ymittos mountains.

So far, the locals are enjoying, if not understanding, baseball. They packed the 6,700-seat ballpark for Greece’s first two games — losses both, 11-0 to the Netherlands and 5-4 to powerhouse Cuba. They roar when a Greek player makes any contact and chant “Hel-las!” to canned organ music. When something complicated happens — a sacrifice fly, a bang-bang play at home — confusion reigns.

The innocent exuberance almost makes me forget the long, sad, contentious trip around the basepaths that baseball has taken here.

But not quite. It’s a Greek drama, in five acts.

Act I: Athens is awarded the 2004 Olympics and decides to play ball. Major League Baseball, which wants to seed the globe with gloves, meets with the new Hellenic Baseball Federation in 1998. “They were very charming but clearly had no clue,” an MLB official says.

The big leaguers supply equipment and write a business plan. They dispatch a retired Greek-American college coach named Mike Riskas to help train players and coaches in the fledgling Greek league.

Mr. Riskas tries to organize coaching seminars and youth programs. The federation stops him. Internal politics. He holds secret practices at two rocky fields on a mothballed U.S. Air Force base. Greek players are thrilled. “They followed me around like puppy dogs,” Mr. Riskas says. The Greek federation finds out, and halts the practices.

After less than a year, MLB calls Mr. Riskas home and ends its support of Greek baseball.

Act II: Peter Angelos, the Greek-American owner of the Baltimore Orioles, agrees to assemble the Greek Olympic team, which by necessity will consist mostly of Greek-Americans. He taps an American scout who managed Australia in the 1996 Games, Rob Derksen. Mr. Derksen scours minor and beer leagues in the U.S. and Canada for players with up to great-grandparental ties in Greece. His team takes second in the 2003 European championships.

Two months before the Games, Mr. Derksen dies of a heart attack.

Act III: A couple of middle-age Greek-Americans from Boston, Bill Galatis and Chuck Samiotes, pitch in. Bill and Chuck, as they call themselves, meet with MLB, deliver bats and balls to Greece, play in a Greek all-star game, draft fund-raising plans, and debrief prospects about their Greek heritage.

The men — Bill is 50 and Chuck is 49 — also want to play for Greece. The Angelos group tags that out and, the two men say, further stymie their efforts. “It was too soon, too fast,” Lou Angelos, a son of the owner, says. The Greeks “just weren’t ready.”

Bill and Chuck watch the Olympics from the stands. “We feel used,” Mr. Galatis says. “Why should Greek baseball be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Baltimore Orioles?”

Act IV: In July, the late Mr. Derksen’s assistants visit Athens to select two Greek-Greeks for the team. Even that’s a lot: Most Greek players would be overmatched in Little League. Both selectees have lived in the U.S., and one is named Robinson. A Greek federation official says he is “insulted”; he wants six Greeks on the team.

In Athens, two Greek-American players fail drug tests (one for a steroid, the other for a blood-pressure medication that wasn’t disclosed). Greek baseball officials blame the team’s U.S. coaches, causing a rift. “You wonder if you’re really part of the [Greek Olympic] team,” assistant coach John Kazanas says.

Act V: The Greeks — actually 20 Greek-Americans, one Greek-Canadian and the two natives — take the field. Mr. Derksen’s son is the bat boy. Team undershirts say “DERK” on a sleeve. But a 7-1 loss to Taiwan yesterday probably eliminates pitching-short Greece from medal contention.

Homegrown Greek baseball is still a long shot. It’s not even certain the stadium will survive after the Olympics. But the amateur league is up to 17 teams and 300 players. The Greek federation wants MLB to come back. The Angeloses say they want to stay involved; so do Bill and Chuck.

All the trouble — the fasaria, as we Greeks say — will be worth it if someday a Greek-Greek can react to wearing the blue-and-white the way pitcher Jared Theodorakos did after his valiant effort against Cuba.

“It was an honor,” he said.