THE Soviets have made a habit of claiming famous Western inventions as their own. But baseball? is nothing sacred? Apparently so: the American national pastime, says Izvestia, is simply the “younger brother” of lapta an “old, spirited game” that “was taken to America by the first Russian settlers and has now returned to us…. with a strange, foreign name”. The Soviets are determined to reclaim their athletic heritage by 1992, when baseball officially becomes an Olympic sport. A national team is now training in Kiev, and next month teams from Cuba and Nicaragua will arrive for an All Starski tournament, Says sportswriter Viadimir Geskin, “The Cuban coaches who came here to see what we had said that in four, five or six years Soviet baseball will be a real power”.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 14, 1987
