WBC Classic Tournament》Czech Team Coach: If sports can replace war, that would be the greatest thing

WBC Czech Team Composed Mostly of Firefighters and Other Multi-Job Athletes, Driven by Pure Love for Competition. Head Coach Hopes to Show the Value of Sports as a Replacement for War, Despite Divergent Views in Academia, Their Spirit Is Truly Moving.

The Czech team in the Classic Tournament is filled with multi-job athletes. Coach Pavel Chadim, after facing Taiwan, shared his insights on the spirit of sports:

“If sports can replace wars in the world. If you can use sports to express people’s desire to compete between nations, I believe that’s the greatness of sports.”

Playing not for money, the Czech team’s sportsmanship

Compared to countries with local professional baseball leagues, Czech players harbor pure passion for baseball.

In pre-tournament interview videos for the WBC, it was mentioned that the most popular sports in Czechia are football, ice hockey, volleyball, etc., and baseball is just a niche sport locally.

Under these circumstances, players who chose to pursue baseball from a young age do so purely out of love for the game. They reveal that everyone has full-time jobs, making it difficult to balance personal life, work, and baseball training. Therefore, they see baseball as a way of life, helping them find balance between family and career.

They emphasize that their purpose in playing baseball has nothing to do with money, only driven by love for the sport and willingness to dedicate themselves, even jokingly calling themselves a group of baseball enthusiasts.

Source: WBC Official Channel In Czechia, Baseball Is Just a Niche Sport

Additionally, since most members of the Czech team have played together from a young age and grown up together, their bonds go beyond typical teammates. They see this team as a big family.

Players hope that participating in the World Baseball Classic can prove to the world that European baseball also has a place on the global stage, carrying the grand dream that small countries can create big surprises.

In the last WBC, Ondrej Satoria struck out top star Shohei Ohtani, and although they didn’t advance to the top eight this time, they scored 4 runs against strong South Korea.

Can sports replace war? Scholars have differing opinions

However, regarding the relationship between sports and war, academia offers diverse perspectives and analyses.

Gerald Early, a scholar at the Washington Center for Human Studies, pointed out years ago that viewing high-intensity sports competitions as substitutes for war has fundamental flaws. Early explained that the driving forces of war are usually economic and political, involving conquest, expansion, and wealth plunder.

But in sports competitions, athletes’ goals are simply to prove their superiority over opponents. Winners do not rule over the defeated like in war, nor do they occupy their homes or seize their assets. Comparing sports directly to war often distorts their true meanings.

However, according to a paper by Martin Hurcombe and Philip Dine, historically, sports and military have had some cultural connections. The paper cites writer George Orwell, who described sports as “war without guns.”

Looking back at 19th-century society, physical education in schools often had military training elements. The societal belief at the time was that sports fields and battlefields shared similarities, and team sports were seen as ways to cultivate young men’s fighting, commercial, and ruling abilities.

Scholar Norbert Elias offered a different perspective, suggesting that sports serve a civilizing function, providing humans with stimulation in facing physical confrontations and technical competition, while minimizing the risk of actual injury.

This allows sports to simulate war through ritualized competition, continuing to influence social stability in modern society.