Greece's national baseball team stepped up to the plate for its first international competition and came home with its own equivalent of a grand slam: a championship title and promotion into Europe's big league.

Four years after deciding to field a 2004 Olympic team in a country with no tradition for the sport, the Greek players went undefeated in the European pool B championship held in early August in Nagykanizsa, Hungary.

Deadly debutants

It may have been Greece's first international competition, but the scores were hardly any indication.

They shut out Bulgaria and Slovakia 23-0 and 21-0, with pitcher Alex Cremidan tossing a no-hitter. Then they trampled on the home team 20-1 and defeated Romania 26-4 before being kept to 15 points against Belarus in their 15-0, seven-inning match.

Veteran Slovakia again faced the Greeks in the championship finals on Aug. 4, this time coming closer than any other team. Final score: 16-3.

"From the first moment, we made this competition our goal so it could be the first step for the development and progress of this sport in our country," said Greek baseball federation president Panos Mitsiopoulos.

He gave much of the credit for the team's success to expatriate Greeks from the United States and Canada who have pledged to help the 2004 Olympic host's baseball effort.

Expat experience

"We believed in this accomplishment from the beginning and that was our goal with the addition of the expatriates," he added.

Success for Greece came earlier than anyone thought, just one year after announcing it would enter an international competition.

Greece's championship gave it a berth to Europe's A pool where it will take the field in Rotterdam next year against such established baseball countries as Italy, France and Spain.

"From today we are making our goal the program necessary for success in pool A and the best possible appearance in the Olympic Games," according to Mitsiopoulos. "That is the goal."

He said that while mostly expatriates played in the championship, Greeks also covered the bases and outfield.

The federation is continuing to scout the world for players of Greek ancestry, with Americans and Canadians making up the better part of the
current national team.

Growing the game

Meanwhile the Greek federation is also trying to educate native Greeks on how to swing a bat, how to throw a curve ball and just simply how to catch a pop fly. Major League Baseball has placed a full-time employee in Athens to work with the federation and others interested in learning the game.

U.S. servicemen introduced the great American pastime to Europe a few decades ago with the sport taking root in some countries like Germany and Italy.

But it didn't catch on in Greece where Homer still is an ancient poet.

Yet in four years, Greece has managed to form nearly two dozen teams with diamonds sprouting around the country.

The sandlots at the abandoned U.S. military base near the old Hellenikon airport have become perfectly manicured practice baseball and softball fields.

But the competition facilities for the pool B championship, that was originally scheduled to be held in Athens this year, were not ready on time.

"They were delayed and that didn't give us the ability to organize this tournament and for the sport to become more known in Greece, for a greater promotion of the sport," Mitsiopoulos said. "That is what we want: the promotion of this sport which is new."

Greek interest in the sport is still waning, though. The baseball victory hardly received any attention by media, which instead focused on a number of other European sports successes Greece earned during the same weekend: gold and silver at the sailing championship in Estonia, bronze at the swimming championship in Berlin and gold in the junior basketball championship in Lithuania.

"We hope after this success it will have the related publicity so more people, more kids, can come to it, to love it and have the possibility of its development in the future and that it will remain after the Olympics," Mitsiopoulos said.