Officially Leksand won the 2007 Swedish Junior Baseball Championship, 1-0.

Unofficially the final result seems highly flawed, and the finals game should either be completed or replayed.

The sole run was recorded when a Leksand runner on third came home on a passed ball. Apparently just about everyone except the umpire was pretty sure the runner was dead at the plate. A few innings later the umpire called the game in the 6th inning because of rain.

Earlier Sunday Eskilstuna edged out Sundbyberg 6-7 to take third place.

Last year Stockholm was removed from the Junior standings for reasons that were never publicly explained. One day all the stats for Stockholm were just removed.

The secret excuse seemed to be because the team hadn’t played enough games, but that was because the Baseball Federation scheduled cadet tournaments that made it impossible for Stockholm to field a team on key weekends.

Unfortunately there is apparently something deeply wrong with the way those in power in Sweden treat Juniors, at least those who play for Stockholm.

Stockholm easily defeated Eskilstuna 7-1 in the opening semi-final of the Swedish Junior Baseball Championships Sunday.

Oscar Carlstedt struck out the side in each of the first three innings.

In the second semi-final Leksand beat Sundbyberg. Sundbyberg and Eskilstuna are playing for third place, with the final between Stockholm and Leksand.

The series is being played at Stockholm’s home field in Skarpnäck.

The four top teams in the Swedish Junior League will be fighting it out in next weekend’s play-offs and finals, here in Stockholm. The schedule:

09:30 Semi 1 Stockholm-Eskilstuna
12:00 Semi 2 Leksand-Sundbyberg
14:30 The two losing teams play for third place
17:00 Final

No  Swedish players have been selected for this year’s MLB European Academy in Italy.

None of the 21 players aged between 15 and 18 who took part in the Swedish try-outs were considered good enough to take part in the European Academy. There’s a really simple explanation. The try-outs are biased in favor of southern Europeans.

The MLB representatives showed up here in the middle of April, just after the snow melted. To add insult to injury they held the try-outs way up north in Leksand, instead of down south where the fields had at least been snow-free for a few weeks.

Worse than that, in mid-April the Swedish players have only been training outside for few days. Hardly anyone has actually played a baseball game by then. No matter how much you train indoors during the winter, nothing replaces actually practicing on a real baseball diamond.

Why do they start up here, and hold the try-outs farther south later in the spring? By the time the MLB scouts show up down there, those kids have been outside for weeks, in some cases, like Italy, they have probably been playing outdoors all winter.

If there is an American counterpart to the MLB European Academy, do they hold their first try-outs every spring in Alaska, and end up in Florida and Arizona? Because that is the equivalent of what they do here in Europe.

For some reason this year’s first Swedish junior (16 to 18 year old) games were played this past weekend when the country’s best juniors were away playing in the Nordic Championships.

On Sunday Stockholm, which sent five players to the national team, played Eskilstuna, which apparently had no players in the Nordic tournament.  Stockholm sent just 9 players to the away games, of which one was a Cadett (under 16).

Home team Eskilstuna took both games, 16-6 and 9-8. Both games were only five innings, so neither would seem to count, if there was a junior league this year, which apparently there is not.

Former Cubs manager and Dodgers star Jim Lefebvre leading last year’s academy, originally uploaded by Posti8

On Saturday Swedish junior baseball players will be traveling to Leksand, in the northern province of Dalarna, to try out for this summer’s MLB International Academy in Tirrenia, Italy.

Twenty-one players aged between 15 and 18 have been invited to take part. Coaches from MLB International will choose which will be given the opportunity to take part in the prestigious academy in August.

Last year two Swedes were invited to Italy.

Here’s the way MLB International describes the academy:

The third-annual Major League Baseball European Academy will take place at the Italian Olympic Training Center in Tirrenia, Italy from August 8 – August 30.

With the 2007 European Academy, Major League Baseball is continuing its commitment to provide promising young players with the opportunity to reach their full potential. The Academy will bring together the brightest up-and-coming talents in Europe and Africa with the best in Major League coaching and instruction.

The Academy will consist of up to 55 players from Europe and Africa who are between 15 and 19 years old and are a part of their nation’s national team programs. A rigorous selection process will ensure that the best young players from the two continents attend the Academy.

Players will work for three-weeks in an intensive Major League training environment featuring skills instruction, strength and conditioning and a complete schedule of games. The program will be run by former Major League player and manager Jim Lefebvre who will head a topnotch staff featuring Bruce Hurst, Lee Smith, Barry Larkin and Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew.

Since 2005, 93 players from 19 European and African nations have attended the Academy with impressive results. 9 Academy players have signed professional contracts with Major League clubs, 8 players are now playing university baseball in the United States and many others have gone on to play significant roles in their domestic leagues and national teams.

Stockholm’s first Spring Training games were today. The photo above is the Stockholm Juniors playing the Enskede seniors, an adult team in Division 2, that plays on the Stockholm field at Skarpnäck and is some kind of "farm team" for Stockholm.

The score in the 7 inning game seemed to be Stockholm Juniors a bunch-Enskede a few less.

Daniel Wood hit an inside the park homerun for Stockholm, batting 3 for 4 with a single and a double.

Meanwhile, the Stockholm Elite Division seniors were on the other side of Stockholm playing cross town rivals Sundbyberg.

The Swedish baseball season begins in less than two weeks on April 28.

Here are this year’s European (and World Series) Little League Baseball tournaments (Sweden is not participating in Little League Softball this year):

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