PESÄPALLO: FINLAND’S ANSWER TO BASEBALL | MLB EUROPE PLAY STORIES 

Awesomeness

Plug your podcast!

We may be reincarnated. When we are reborn, we may live a painful life. Please make this world a paradise so that everyone can be happy.

When does the season take place? Visiting Finland next year and would love to attend

It would have been great to hear a little about the rules. Obviously I noticed the runners going left after hitting, but also seeming to come "home" from the same direction. If you have a video explaining the rules, I'd love to check it out! (I had never heard of this, despite being an ESPN 8 fan)

Aye mane, no shame in hyping your bros mane.

That's what you disagree with?!?! How about the fact that it was said they could play in MLB? That's ludicrous at best. This sport completely sidesteps the element that makes baseball the hardest sport of all.

Well im sports fan and I can name only one football player from Finland but I can name 100 pesäpallo players

@@attesalomaa3768 Only one football player? Wow! You clearly are a bigger fan of pesäpallo than football and good for you. In no matter my comment was a diss for pesäpallo or fans of the game. I still think most of the Finns know more footballers, ice hockey players etc than pesäpallo players. :)

@@Alex-qf9js They didn't say MBL. Just that they could be baseball players.

Same. I was one of the first ones picked for pesäpallo since I could hit the ball so far away (since we didn't use the backfield rule which makes it an illegal strike if the ball passes the backline without hitting the ground first).

Is there anywhere to play this in the USA?

Thanks to that Finland has two cultures - Eastern and Western ! We eat Different Food - talk differently - think differently - so ITÄ MEETS LÄNSI - is a battle of Cultures !

How is it divided east and west when it's such a long country? It seems it should be divided north and south, since there is probably more differences between north and south.

@@nofurtherwest3474 It's because there were few people living in the Northern Finland for most of our history (still there are far less than in the south) and therefore when the cultural differences were established, Finland was not really that long northwise. Also, even more importantly, the differences come from Finland being sort of between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, which meant that Western Finland got more influence from the west and Eastern Finland from the east. Even christian faith was brought both from west and the east, which meant that most people living in easternmost parts of Finland were orthodox christians before Sweden conquered those lands. East Karelians, who are the closest relatives to Finns, are of course still orthodox for that reason.

@@glendaal67 Thanks for explaining. Sounds like a nice place, I hope to visit someday

One reason is that we play pesäpallo in school P.E. classes from grade 1 up to sr highschool so most people have at least some experience of playing pesäpallo. Just like US and Canadian ppl play baseball in school P.E. class In adaptation from pesäpallo to baseball the biggest challenge is to learn to hit ball that comes towards you VS is thrown upwards next to you.

And that never happens

@@Kerppu68 Yeah, people that don't watch the sport are being experts here. 😂

That could only happen if the batter decided to immediately hit before the pitcher has even done anything. The ball is thrown high in the air and there is good time to step aside before the ball drops back and needs to be hit.

@@TheSpeederist I’m making a funny, not being serious

@@Kerppu68 kyl koulussa se on muutaman kerran porukalla naamaan lämähtäny

they play it in Japan. Or at least used to

@@torpmorp1324 Baseball? It's still the biggest sport in Japan I think, although soccer is growing in popularity there annoyingly.

@@DudeTotally1000 why annoyingly?

@@dualiedan5205 Because baseball is better than soccer.

@@DudeTotally1000 um ok? It's annoying another sport is growing in popularity?

*pallo. Pesäpallo is a compound word, pesä means nest (but sounds a bit like base) and pallo means ball, as one might expect :D

​@@myfaceismyshield5963 Base can actually mean pesä also :D

Actually there has been 10 world cups but women's series has been involved only 8 times and mixed teams 9 times. Finland has won all those tournaments so there is total 27 gold medals for Finland.

That's an unfair tournament.

​@@EM-ic1ypHow so?

You obviously need great control for pitches to make the difference between good and bad pitches difficult to see, apart from smaller details the main things are you need to hit the round plate with the pitch and it must arc 1 meter (~3 feet) above the head of the pitcher. There's very different pithing rules with no balk rule in finnish baseball and usually runners go either immidiately after the pitch or a tad after to see if it is a good pitch or not, you essentially are baiting runners to go much more than in baseball and trying to throw them out constantly. Also due to needing to hit the inside of the pitch only initially for the hit not to be foul and hitter not needing to run for first after a hit, bunting is much more developed in finnish baseball and pitchers need to be fast to field short bunts for hopes of getting outs. With fast runner on 1st or 2nd it is fairly common to lob a really bad ball several meters towards the base the runner will go towards to so the pither even gets a running start to throw them out after the pitch if the runner took of as soon as the pitch started. With all this in mind, while still a really key position the pitcher alone isn't even close as important as in baseball, so they need to pull their weight in running and hitting departments too, and due to not being as harsh on the body, there's only 1 pitcher per team instead of a ton of substitutes

@@Samsunaattori Thank you very much for your reply. This gives me a good understanding about the pitcher role in pesapallo. The sport is really awesome. Hope it gets even more attention.

Have You heard that PESAPALLO IS Played at INDIA too ! There Are several Teams - aswell as at Nepal and Bangladesh !

@@holoholopainen1627 Yeah. I know. There is channel in youtube named Pesapallo federation of India.

Therefore allround more interesting

Easier = lightwork

Easier = bad sport

The opponent.

The opponent's pitcher is against you when you are batting. You both stand on opposite sides of the pitching plate.

The pitcher is from the opposing team. In Finnish baseball the pitcher has a very crucial role. They see everything that is happening in the field and they are constantly trying to read from the movement of the players in the bases, what their next move will be, who's gonna run etc. One example is from the act of "catching a fly". In many occasions, when the pitcher throws the ball in the air, the runners in the bases start to run towards the next base. Their act is based on a mark that their team lead has shown and by this act they aim to improve their probability of reaching the next base or home base in time before the ball. In Finnish Baseball as there is no home run in the sense of hitting the ball outside of the field (that would be a foul), the ball lands somewhere in the field or in the glove of player in the field. A very typical situation is that a player in the field throws the ball to a base and that results in an "out". When catching a fly, especially when catching the runner that is trying to reach home base, the pitcher lures the runners to run without actually throwing the ball/throwing a low ball etc and thus resulting in an "out" immediately, when the pitcher picks up the ball and the home base runner is between bases or throwing the ball to bases 1, 2 or 3 to make an out.

@@artopuikkonen It sounds a lot more complicated than it looks on the video, and somewhat resemble to what MLB pitchers/players do. Thank you for your reply 👍

@@bluesmechalo89 Thank you!

Pitcher is the conductor of defence. Pitcher's job is to change tempo, get to know plans of the attacking team, force hitter to fail it's shot and force runner's to take bad starts from base and make them slower that way. You have to know when make a bad pitch, more curvy pitch, really high pitch, really low pitch. Also you have to know/guess where the batter is trying to hit the ball and you do everything that batter doesn't success. Also there are 14 opponents around you shouting and trying to make you fail with words.

I can confirm pesäpallo is boboll på svenska

Dont You Swedes Have a Game of Your own - that IS similar ?

@@holoholopainen1627 Yes, we have brännboll which is quite similar to baseball :)

@@slide-se How BIG IS IT ? IS IT at certain areas - IS IT known - everywhere at Sweden ! Do You Have any YT Videos ?

@@holoholopainen1627 it is played on school yards and in parks, usually with friends or classmates. You don't attend games with professional players since there is no league for it. It's a goofy game you can play while drinking beer.. :)

Not true. In the men's series, salaries are around €50-60,000/year. With that money you can comfortably pay your bills in Finland.( I am a pensioner and I get a pension around €10,000/year). Toni Kohose was once paid the best salary in baseball, around €130,000/year.

They can vary the way they hit the ball, they are very skillful in that, and there is a reason why they often hit like that.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zDrLcPxSBRk.html

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yom1_q8WRck.html

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zDrLcPxSBRk.html

Not all but most. Lefties have a longer run to first base.

Same background. As Swedish "brännboll", Rumanian "oina", etc. All are versions of old European game "longball". Before pesäpallo we played kuningaspallo - "kingball" - in Finland, then Lauri Pihkala designed pitkäpallo, before his trip to the US. Side note, before this version pesäpallo in Finnish meant baseball.

How? Baseball is more popular

@@EM-ic1yp Yeah so? Pesäpallo is much more tactical and much interesting to follow.

@Finnishkebab Tacital? It's an easy sport! The pitcher throws the ball vertically, and you have a 99.9% chance of hitting the ball in mid-air.

By claiming there's no distinction between the men and women's games he's pandering to the "new women" with meat and veg.

That's not true!

Lol

No, now we NEED to get into Pesäpallo. Baseball is dying.

@@clarkesmith. that's your opinion, i think many people can disagree

@@FrankOcean-- agree 110%

@@FrankOcean-- nah bro baseball is D Y I N G

1. Baseball 2. Cricket 3. Pesäpallo

Baseball, which is a knockoff of cricket...

If you actually think you could easily play this sport after having only played baseball you don't know anything about sports.

Pretty much the same bodytype as the overweight millionaires in MLB

​@@TheHDNixonIgnorant

They share the throne with Finland 😜

Finland Olympic and World Champion 2022 💪💪💪

Finland exels in C-level competitions like World Championships and past Olympics.

@@harjatalonen3467 mens didn't won Gold cause they couldn't have any NHL players, Canada won world juniors, Canada woman's also won gold in the Olympics this past year

if the players are busy molesting women then they dont participate. simple as that. the best boxer in world might be some jailguy but hes not in the race

Who said it is Baseball? The video stated that Baseball was inspiring Lauri Pihkala, and Pesäpallo was created in combination of Baseball and similar traditional ball games. Pesäpallo isn't trying to be "real baseball".

Also, basketball is not volleyball.

Maybe but try to do that pitching when heckled. Remember that ball must reach specific height and it must land on plate.

They can't do that cause they'd all move to Finland after finding out how much more fun pesäpallo is😌

Finnish all stars vs Baseball all stars playing Pesäpallo :D

@@monni362 Let's be honest, MLB players would probably absolutely wash the best Finns after a day of getting used to pesäpallo... But it'd definitely still be cool to see.

@Ziwuri13 I don’t think it would be exactly like that. Growing up playing both pesäpallo and baseball, pesäpallo is a placement game and baseball really is a power game. I’m sure that they would catch on quite quickly, however it’s the little things and quick pace that would take the mlb player’s a bit longer to grasp

There wouldn't be enough time to run ad's

And on the pitcher's side: in baseball the pitcher is taking his time, more often than not intentionally slowing the game down, while in pesäpallo the pitcher tries to keep a high tempo. Both still have the same goal: force the batting team take bad decisions and easy hits.

Thanks both of you. Good analysis.

Its a lot harder to time your swing in pesäpallo that on your version of it

@Henkka you mean it’s harder in baseball?

Thanks, the brief summary of the difference between what the picture and the batter try to do really help. Although I don't know if Runners can steal bases like in baseball - you have to love what spell checker tries to do with foreign words :-) - without men on base and especially before so much television, pitchers tended to work a lot faster in baseball too.. it's one reason I don't enjoy baseball as much now as I did in the '80s and 90s.

Well, I would like to see what would happen if some of the American players who are known for home runs would do to that ball. What is your opinion??

@@Lonewolfmike hitting Home Runs is a totally different thing in pesäpallo, since the ball cannot be batted as far as possible. If the ball lands outside of the playing area it is an illegal strike. The pitch is obviously easier to hit in pesäpallo, but the pitchers don't make it easy to strike accurately with full force.

@@Mistermies Well I don't think they would like a screaming liner at them as well. You should see some of the exit velocities they can generate.

@@Lonewolfmike hardest pesäpallo hitters can create velocities over 180kmh. When you also consider that pesäpallo is 12% heavier than a baseball, I really can't see a reason why a baseball player would somehow hit the ball way harder.

@@Mistermies They can hit them harder. And these are absolute rockets. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4i6gxmu7TUY.html

Come on down here. You can stay at my quest house and I take you to the game :)

Welcome..!!!

Try the sausage and coffee between periods! Also watch some full games before hand. Assuming that you understand regular baseball..these few games will teach you about fundamental differences between games. You might not know everything, but you'll know enough to enjoy.

but only in some cities and small towns, it's more of a countryside sport

@@pyrylehtonen-caponigro3198 Finland only has small towns in International standards :D

@@peliintiikerintuot241 well Helsinki, Espoo and Tampere are small cities by international standards. But Lahti for example is just a town

@@pyrylehtonen-caponigro3198 There are no international standards for "city" - except within the EU. By the EU standards Lahti (and e.g. Espoo) is a city, by the British flexible and approximate standards probably not - and Espoo definitely not. In the USA a "city" is roughly the same as the so-called "old towns" used to be in Finland, but that concept doesn't exist anymore. However Lahti was the newest "old town". In both the UK and the USA there are some extremely small cities, so size alone does not define a city. Summa summarum - I would call Lahti as a city.

@@timoterava7108 I mean more like international colloquial standards, not anything official.

Exactly, much better and interesting sport.

I think it fixes the slow pace of baseball, its a lot more hitting and running and fielding, all the things that are fun about baseball.

@@EverettGuenther for me the biggest part is that batting is much more skill based, instead of just power.

Baseball is much slower as a game,and the homerun rule is different in Pesäpallo..

Still boring, though.

Baseball's slowness is what makes it suspenseful. But, if you don't get it, that's fine

@@theonionpirate1076 That's true. You have to watch baseball quite much so you can understand it so you can enjoy it fully. I think the most entertaining thing in baseball is speculating what could happen on the field as in pesäpallo entertaining part is what is happening currently on the field.

@@theonionpirate1076 Baseball is like watching soccer and Pesäpallo is like watching basketball.

@@nihilist1680 awsome referral!

Keke Rosberg, Mika Hakkinen, Heikki Kovalainen, Kimi Raikkonen, and now Valtteri Bottas!

yeah well that is pretty much because most of our people are addicted to ice hockey

Yeah Im sure if all the top level pesäpallo players would get offer to play at MLB pretty much all of them would take the deal (if there is not some limiting factors about moving to US) playing one season would make them more money than their whole career in pesäpallo.

Yes Right ! Atleast You know WHO Mr Tahko Pihkala was - as The Founder of The Game ?

thing is that in pesäpallo you want the same exact thing from every player and in baseball you want a variety of types of players

Unless the player is Juha Niemi.

@@pyrylehtonen-caponigro3198 Not entirely true. In pesäpallo, there are highly specialized batters, because for instance number 1 in the order needs to be consistent with getting into first base, but he/she/they doesn't need to be good in hitting trough all fielders. On the other hand, jokers (DH in baseball terms) don't always need to be good running between the bases nor fielding, but they are often great in batting runners home to score runs. In baseball, you of course have batters that focus more on getting contact and others that are just trying to hit as hard as they can, but because there is completely fixed batting order in baseball, you can't really strategize with putting good contact hitters first in every innings and to follow it up with power hitters. It's pretty much just random in terms of that.

@@glendaal67 however you're still looking at a very limited selection, you're not looking for short, medium and long distance hitters. As everything is either short or medium and only the first couple of hitters are good if they hit the ball a short distance

@@pyrylehtonen-caponigro3198 Yeah, maybe, but there is not very much difference in the baseball either. Hitters contribution is basicly combination of OPS (on-base percentage) and slugging (how many bases you advance on average), but every hitter tries to do the same thing. The only difference is that some are more specialized on getting hits and walks and some are aiming at home runs more. In pesäpallo, you have so many different types of hitting techniques for hitting different parts of the field and it's more beneficial for teams to have wide variety of different strengths in batting order to make fielding more difficult for opponent. You can of course make same argument in baseball when it comes to countering pitchers, because pitcher needs to have more variety if there is more variety in the batting lineup. Nevertheless I don't see that as so big part of baseball than I see it as part of pesäpallo.

we have american baseball in finland you squid lol

@@skatefire55 But It needs to be as popular as Pessäpallo or else it doesn’t matter!

@@mike-0451 No. Pesäpallo is our part of our culture. Keep yours off.

@@no8592 What? So we can’t play Pesäpallo because you play it even though it’s based off of baseball, which is our sport?

​@@mike-0451 Don't listen to this. Baseball is a great game and I would love to see it gain more popularity here in Finland!

Rules are sooo complicated with evry detail but shortly: You hit ball and run to base. Opponent who plaus outside tries to "burn" you so you need to get out. Then next people xomes and tries get to field... Look some videos for better experience than my bad english

Check Ninh explains pesäpallo.

I actually did that after I wrote the comment…I still don’t get it hahahahaha

I've been watching our local games for 12 years and I have no idea still what all the rules are. But the basics are "it's baseball but" and then the but is "you pretty much 100% hit the ball, so WHERE to hit the ball is the tactics." Otherwise some things I've seen, sometimes fielders intentionally let the ball bounce then field it instead of catching it. A catch isn't an out. Foul line also includes all the field (no out-of-the-field homeruns).

@@Perezonator Differences for baseball. Out of bounds is illegal hit. You have 3 hits and out of bounds takes also one away even if it is the last hit. Catching a ball on air with out touching ground is not out, but all runners who were running and were out of base, get's off the field. Out is only when ball is on base before the runner or you are hitting and 3rd hit is out of bounds. You do not need to run after successful hit.

It's actually a pretty direct Finnish translation of the word baseball. A super strict translation back to English would make it "nestball". I don't know if the inventor of pesäpallo, Tahko Pihkala, ever exlained the word, but one factor is that Finnish doesn't have a short word for "base" in the same sense English does, so "pesäpallo" was quite a genius word for it.

Everybody in Italy knows IL Solo Italiano - Olen suomalainen !

well the function of batting is completely different. I've watched pesäpallo players play baseball and it didn't go too well

@@pyrylehtonen-caponigro3198 they would do good as fielders though. Hitting is completely different, no wonder it doesn't go well. They would probably pitch good fastballs as well.

@@lbh704 they do pitch good fastballs, however they haven't trained the same kind of accuracy. Also they require training in stuff like stopping on second

​@pyrylehtonen-caponigro3198 Really? Do you have one on video?

Same. I saw a notable change In the distribution of the players In the back field when i grabbed the bat.

they are really just 2 different sports, they just look kinda similar if you haven't looked into them

Baseball is more popular than pesäpallo