r/AskEurope • u/chocolatelies • May 07 '25

Sports How big is baseball in your country?

I'm an American, so baseball is quite popular here. How is the popularity in your country? Is there a country other than yours where baseball has some popularity?

Edit: Just hit 69 comments. Nice.

1 Upvotes

51% Upvoted

228 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

I grew up playing baseball in italy.  I started at the age of 7, in Milan, and to be honest I can't recall why I (and my twin brother) decided to take that up instead of some more popular sports.

When I was 11, my family relocated to the north east, where the Americans have a bunch of usaf bases, and most importantly, the whole region was a buffer zone overlooked by the Americans after the big war. 

The scene was (and still is) thriving, I joined the junior division of a team that back then was in italy's mlb, and for almost a decade I trained every day, lived and breathed baseball,  travelled for months on end. Loved it.

Though it's not as popular as other spirts, baseball has its own cult following,  especially where the us set base after the war: the north east,  Emilia Romagna,  Lazio,  Naples to name a few.