GRE

That team was primarily comprised of Greeks from North America. Therefore they had a head start over the players of all the other teams who were mostly young Greeks who were born and raised in Greece.  This relatively recent establishment of organized baseball can be attributed to the fact that Greece won the right to organize the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. With the games in Athens, Greek sports authorities dreamed of fielding a Greek Olympic Baseball Team. To do so, they established the Hellenic Amateur Baseball Federation in 1998 and the Federation organized the Greek league.  Since that first league championship in the year 2000, the HABF has organized a league championship each year with as many as 20 different teams competing. At the same time, it has established and manned a National Team that has played in several high level international competitions including: 2002 European Qualifier Tournament in Hungary:   1st place 2003 European Seniors Championship in Holland:  2nd place 2004 Athens Olympic Games:                                     7th place 2005 European Seniors Championship in Czech R: 9th place 2008 European Qualifier Tournament in Portugal:   1st place 2010 European Seniors Championship in Germany:4th place 2011 Baseball World Cup in Panama:                       15th place 2012 European Seniors Championship in Holland:   7th place Players have been and continue to be recruited from teams in the local Greek league and from the Greek diaspora of North America. Today, baseball in Greece is experiencing a dramatic increase in interest among youngsters. The Little League organization has taken hold and teams are being organized at a welcome pace.  The men’s league is still running strong with as many as ten teams participating in the local tournaments. The sport’s future in Greece is promising and we hope to host a major international tournament within the next few years.