Europe
A European federation, the Confédération Européenne de Baseball (CEB, European Baseball Confederation) was founded in 1953. The federation organises all international competitions within Europe. These are the European Championships for country teams, divided into two divisions, and a number of club competitions: the European Cup, the Club Winners' Cup and the CEB Cup.
All of the European competitions have been dominated by only two countries: Italy and the Netherlands. They share 25 of the 27 European titles between them, the other titles being won by Belgium and Spain, both times in absence of one or two of the two usual winners, but these countries have medalled regularly as well. Other countries that are among the top players in Europe are Russia, France and the Czech Republic. Most of the club titles have also been won by Dutch or Italian teams.
Read more about this topic: History Of Baseball Outside The United States
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze
Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume
Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze
Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;
An epitaph of glory for the tomb
Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,
Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;
Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;
The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and ... in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere.”
—William Dean Howells (1837–1920)