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| It's Prague vs. Brno in the Czech Extraliga finals, which begins this weekend. |
And since moving to the Czech Republic, I've gotten a small taste of a huge rivalry between the country's two biggest cities, Prague and Brno. When folks hailing from the respective cities speak about the other town, they usually speak in venomous tones. I know guys from Prague who won't leave their car parked in Brno overnight, because the 'A' on their license plate indicating they are from Prague means it could get damaged. Some of those same guys from Prague will also tell you that they love their city because of all the sites and history, and say that Brno has just one site worth seeing ... the exit sign to Prague.
I've made the two-hour trek to Brno twice now for games, but this weekend will get my first extended experience there when a couple of us go to check out the night scene on Friday night and then stay for Game 1 of the Czech Extraliga finals between AVG Draci Brno and KRC Eagles Praha on Saturday afternoon. My players with our Tempo Titans Praha club don't start our semifinal series in the Českomoravská liga (second division) playoffs until Sept. 8, so that gives us a window to check out the Extraliga playoffs, an opportunity I don't want to pass up.
There's a buzz in the baseball community here as clubs from the two cities prepare to square off in the finals for the first time in nearly a decade. And that is only adding to the excitement in a country that hosted the U21 European Championships last month and will cheer on its senior national team in the European Championships in Holland and in the World Baseball Classic qualifier in Germany next month.
A little history about the teams:
Draci Brno, one of the top clubs in all of Europe, won the country's national championship 16 consecutive years from 1995-2010 before losing to another Brno club, Technica, last summer. They're the big dogs here, the Yankees of the Czech Republic you might say. And so it's fitting that if using a Yankee (Evil Empire) comparison, that they would wear black. They've got arguably the top domestic player in the country, Martin Schneider, usually have a couple former mid-level Minor Leaguers as their import guys, have REEBOK splashed across their jersey as the shoe and apparel company serves as the highest-profile baseball sponsor in the country, and generally carry a stigma around with them on diamonds across Moravia and Bohemia.
KRC Eagles Praha, meanwhile, is undergoing a renaissance of sorts under coach Andy Berglund, an American who doubles as the senior national team head coach. A balanced group with some savvy vets and young talent, the Eagles are in the finals for the first time since 2004 and looking for their first national championship since 1988. I won't lie, I'm not neutral in this, I'd like to see the Eagles win. The KRC facility is only a couple miles from ours, and we've held combined practices with them, have played a few 'friendlies' against them, and our guys have grown up in the youth leagues and schools with a number of their guys. Oh, and their club got its start in 1981 when several members of our club split off to start a new team (they then went on to win the national championship the next two years, in case you were wondering).
So this weekend I get a taste of the great Czech rivalry, and it takes center stage on a baseball diamond. In the dog days of summer, with a beer in hand, who could ask for anything more? At the very least, it will help me to almost forget for a couple days that I'm missing the best year of baseball since 1933 back in my hometown, Washington, D.C., as the Nationals carry the best record in baseball into MLB's home stretch.
For more information or to follow the Czech Extraliga series, visit www.baseball.cz.