Pesäpallo (Finnish baseball) is a good example of how
aspects of a foreign game can be assimilated into a
popular pastime of another culture. With origins in an
informal game played by villagers and country people
in a rather free-for-all fashion, Finnish baseball has
evolved into a more competitive and formal sport with
organized clubs, standardized rules, uniforms, and
modern equipment.
The development of Finnish baseball has clear connections to the industrialization of its native country in
the 20th century. The rules and organization of the
game have evolved with the population migration into
towns and cities and the increasing commercialism of
contemporary life.
History
The modern game of Finnish baseball is based on the
traditional game of “king’s ball,” in which a ball of birch
bark (later a fist-sized leather ball) was pitched straight
up in the air and hit by a player wielding a board or
long racket. A similar game was played in Germanspeaking areas as Schlagball, in Nordic countries as
långboll, and in Russia as lapta. All were peasant, or
“folk” games, played outdoors, and in principle anyone
could participate.
A good deal of improvisation and something of a
carnival atmosphere characterized this early game.
There was no clear method for keeping score, players
taunted each other freely and vigorously, and games
regularly ended in open quarrel and stone throwing.
Modern Finnish baseball was the brainchild of
Lauri “Tahko” Pihkala (1888–1981), a journalist,
philosopher, sport historian, and critic of modern competitive sport. Pihkala’s primary interests lay in national defense and in the educational possibilities of
sports.
In 1914, Pihkala initiated modifications to king’s
ball to create what he envisioned as a more functional,
disciplined, and competitive game. He viewed the original game as a confused “crowd game” that did not offer players sufficient scope for exercising responsibility
and initiative.
As early as 1907, Pihkala had watched baseball
games in the United States and sought to incorporate
aspects of American baseball into his developing concept of Finnish baseball. Pihkala saw American baseball as a hitting and running game in which the rules
produced more frequent exchanges of teams “at bat,”
speeding up the game. He viewed the American game
as a form of “trench warfare” and proposed developing
Finnish baseball into a “mobile war” between bases, in
conformity with the basic Finnish military doctrine of
forest warfare, which was to “fire and move”(i.e., shooting or throwing a hand grenade, and then plunging
ahead) (Klemola 1963, 51–52, 237).
Rules and Play
The contemporary game is guided by a set of conventional rules and tactics developed over the years since
Pihkala’s campaign to “modernize” the sport. It is
played on a field measuring 40 by 94 meters (131 by
308 feet) (somewhat smaller for women’s teams) with
standard-sized bats and balls.
Like American baseball, the Finnish game has nine
innings, and each team fields nine players. Eight members of the fielding team are positioned around the
field, and the lukkari (pitcher) attempts to prevent the
batter from getting a hit. Unlike the horizontal pitches
in American baseball, Finnish pitches are vertical
(straight up), which gives the pitcher greater tactical
opportunities to mislead the batter and precludes
power pitching. The ball must be pitched so that it falls
on home plate if it is not struck.
A batter has three chances (strikes) to get on the
field. Once he has gotten on base, succeeding players attempt to get on base themselves and advance the preceding players in the field. As in American baseball, a
player is out if the ball reaches the base before he does.
A run is scored when a player makes the circuit of three
bases and reaches home plate. The batting team has at
least nine attempts, plus one after each run, to get onto
the field. When the batting team has burned three
times, by failing to reach the base before the ball, the
teams change places.
One major difference between American and
Finnish baseball is that the Finnish ball field has a rear
boundary over which the batter may not hit the ball.
Hitting the ball beyond the boundary is known as an
“illegal strike.” As a result of this limitation, players are
less likely to advance more than one base at a time.
Finnish baseball has become a game for all sections
of the population and, since the 1920s, has been incorporated into the physical education program in the
public schools. Team games are concentrated mainly in
population centers, but there are also good teams in
sparsely populated areas, where the game is even more
popular than soccer (association football).
—MARTTI SILVENNOINEN
Bibliography: Karkkainen, P. (1992) “Pesäpallo—Finnish
baseball: history and presentation of the national game.”
Presented at the first International Society of History in
Sports and Physical Education seminar, “Sport and Cultural Minorities,” 8–13 June, Turku, Finland. Klemola, H.
(1963) Tahkon latu. Lauri Pihkala eilen ja tänään
[Tahko’s trail: Lauri Pihkala in the past and present]. 75-
vuotispäivän juhlakirja. Helsinki: Otava. Laitinen, E.
(1983) Pesäpallo: Kansallispeli 60 vuotta [Pesäpallo: a national game in 60 years]. Saarijärvi, Saarijärven: Offset
Ky. Pihkala, L. (1932) Pesäpallo itsekurin ja päällikk mielen kouluna [Pesäpallo as a school self-discipline and
commander-spirit]. Pesäpalloilijan vuosikirja.