The Greek National Baseball Team has announced that they will compete at the Prague Baseball Week this coming June. This marks the first game action for Hellas since the team made a Cinderella run all the way to the European A-Pool tournament.
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It’s been an exciting winter for Greek fans, as there have been some major additions to the coaching staff. Manager Rye Pothakos was replaced by long-time minor leaguer and former Olympian Chris Demetral. The 52-year-old Demetral has added some MLB-caliber talent to the coaching staff, first recruiting former Cub and Cardinal Erik Pappas to serve as the team’s hitting coach. Then, former Kansas City Royal Mike Tonis was announced as another coach last month. The additions of Pappas and Tonis add not only two very talented and experienced baseball men, but also show that Demetral and General Manager Tom Mazarakis have been able to make serious inroads into MLB’s Greek-American community. With such a large number of extremely accomplished Greek major leaguers like Tino Martinez and Eric Karros, Hellas could look to add even more star power to their coaching staff in the future.
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As for the on field product, Team Greece looks to be in good shape for Prague Baseball Week, as the program put the baseball world on notice last year by moving from the European C-Pool all the way up to A-Pool. Youngsters Antonio Torres, Andre Demetral and Luke Pappas look poised to carry on a winning tradition that was started by veterans Jonathan Kountis, Pete Maestrales and others. In just a few weeks time it’ll be exciting to see how this new-look Greek squad matches up against some of Europe’s best competition.