Romania Invented Baseball

Who invented Baseball? The Romanians.  Can it be so? Yes! Great!

Global roots.

The inventor of baseball was not Abner Doubleday, despite the Cooperstown, NY Baseball Hall of Fame, see http://www.whoinventedbaseball.com/.

Play Ball!

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The modern field came about in 1845, thanks to Alexander Joy Cartwright, see ://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbaseball.htm/. But, despite continuing claims that the game was invented in America also in 1845, the British had been playing "Rounders" since the 1600's, and then the American colonists played their version, called "Town Ball", see ://www.schools.pinellas.k12.fl.us/educators/tec/Mutert2/begbb.html/

Play Oina! It is the Romanians who invented the game closest to baseball - or its group equivalents before the name came about.  They have been playing "Oina" since 1364, during the reign of Vlaicu Voda, and Oina is the "godfather" of our baseball, see ://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_baseball/  It remains the national sport.  There are back-and-forth lanes (not our diamond), and the game lasts 30 minutes, and read there of the many similarities.

This Inventorship:  other sources agree.  The idea is supported by this article in the Seattle Times - see ://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900422&slug=1067700/   Transylvanians introduced it here, according to  Romanian sports writer Cristian Costescu.  They emigrated from Alba Iulia. They joined the US Army, taught the game to their fellows, and one of those was - you guessed it - Abner Doubleday, who added a twist or two.  See also the Romanian baseball origins at ://www.buzzle.com/articles/origin-and-history-of-baseball.html

Oina:  11 on a side. One team bats, the other team takes the field.  The pitcher, however, is from the batting team and lobs over an easy slow one.  Whack!  Batter runs 120 yards.  There are 9 bases.  If the batter gets tagged, that earns the fielding team points, so you can rack up your score by tagging the runners - not just by hitting and getting home.  Bat looks like a cricket bat, and nobody wears gloves.   Each side gets an "at-bat" - and all 11 get a chance.

Famous player, like Babe Ruth: Eugen Cocut.  All that still from ://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900422&slug=1067700/

Basarab I (not Vlaicu Voda)

Vlaicu Voda - see the monastery he founded, at ://alexisphoenix.org/vodita.php/.  Do an Images search in Bing, and see a statue that we had thought, when we were there, to be Basarab I, and that is the name on the pedestal.  Here is our Basarab, the same statue that shows up at Bing's Images Vlaicu Voda.

Basarab does sound more like baseball.  That clinches it.

No, wrong.  Basarab reigned 1310-1352;  Vlaicu Voda reigned 1364-1377. See ://www.fact-index.com/w/wa/wallachia.html/  Separate people.

Safe!

EU Membership Romania - What it Means (European Union)

Romania has been in the news lately, as hosting the big NATO conference April 2008.

1. The site of the conference: A large area cleared out of traditional Bucharest neighborhoods, by Former President Nicolae Ceausescu, who was later executed by firing squad 12/25/1989. There is negative coverage as to Ceaucescu at ://www.dictatorofthemonth.com/Ceaucescu/May2007CeaucescuEN.htm.

However, we noted special shrines to him at his grave; and in the lower floors of a museum.

He put urban renewal ahead of people, was our impression (as did Hartford in clearing the Italian ethnic neighborhoods to put up a sterile unused mall-huge walkway downtown, where the empty wind blows you away). He cleared much of inner-city Bucharest and its neighborhoods to construct Parliamentary buildings and wide boulevards, to compete with Paris, complete with an Arch of Triumph. That Parliamentary area is where the conference was held.

When we were there, at the urban renewal - urban clearances area, it was largely vacant. Acre after acre - except for a winding broad drive, and the government buildings. No people walking, vast open spaces. Sterile, not for people, only for a show of power over them, in our view. Big fountains, but ugly billboards (like in Connecticut - go, Governor Rell - out with billboards as forced visuals, violating reasonable time, place and manner for commercial advertising).

2. The neighborhood clearances and the feral dogs. In clearing the old city neighborhoods, and moving people to government housing, we understand that the people could take no pets - thus the thousands upon thousands (by now) of stray dogs, including cockers, pekingese, shelties, beagles and poodles, as well as the large yellow mixes, many Heinz 57 by now, but still many identifiable as essentially specific breeds. Foraging. Even up in the mountains now. Chasing cars, looking for food. They tell you never to put your hand down to pet, no kind words. Even to the cute. No solution, no humane help given the givens. Life and death in the transitional third world.

Back to EU:

3. European Union. We like the Financial Times for balanced, neutral accounts of our world, so this is from that UK publicaton's March 7,2008, Special Report:

Joining the EU, as happened in January 2007 (after our visit, when the horsecarts were still a norm, and, we felt, reasonably provided reasonable access to roadways for all people, including the poor, and cars were indeed careful). With EU membership, Romania qualifies for, but is not guaranteed unless it shows it can draw up and execute enough projects to qualify:

• infrastructure (roads and what else?),
  
• social and environmental purposes (what is that? horrible industrial smog south of Cluj Napoca,
• farm sector "taking them on" whatever that means. The peasants? a living wage? or assimilation of The Roma or Gypsies -- but their tradition is non-assimilation, working in a transient way. Is there a future in merely offering self-employment, having been cast off regular work for so long, see Gypsies, Roma .
  

The economy apparently is soaring, nonetheless.

Yet, political factions are warring - as is expected when cash is around. As in the US, with our ubiquitous political pork. No claim of superiority here.

In Romania, as perhaps here if there is no clear direction after the 2008 election, paralysis politically is around the bend, with warring groups squaring off. Like here. Lack of experience in "project design and management," coping with new conditions - sounds like us, here, all parties, all candidates - the world is marching on despite our misinterpretations and corruptions. Is there any real difference between east and west. Ha.

Please look up the Financial Times article.

Romania on Kosovo: Teodor Melescanu, defense minister, says (look up the article for the quotes): unhappy about Kosovo as departing from the tried-and-true process of changing borders through negotiation.

Romania also has other reason for concern if groups succeed in separation out unilaterally - separatist interests - there is a large Hungarian population in Romania. What if they want to reunite with Hungary? Mr. Bush - have you thought through your support of Kosovo's independence? See a review of the Hungarian minority, also known as the Magyar, in Romania at ://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/assessment.asp?groupId=36002.





Positives for Romania: It has weathered Communism, Fascism,

Horsecarts now banned, major roadways

Horsecarts, wagons with auto wheels, divided supports for flexibility front to back, whole families on board, goods, equipment. On the road.

We never saw any accidents, only courteous drivers slowing up, going around, blinking lights if a cart happened to be in front, and that was the reason for the slow-up. So many of them - on main highways, everywhere. A rule for us was never drive after dark if we could help it - many carts had no reflectors, and no lights. In foggy areas, we crept.

There was a massive roadbuilding program in progress, however. We were there in the fall, also, and that meant end-of-summer pothole filling in preparation for another winter. The best time to travel in Romania then was in the fall. Spring meant the new holes gaping out there, and worst for the horses. So, European Union aspirations mean big bucks for some, and a hindrance to an already marginal life for so many poor.

See the issue of prosperity's darlings at the expense, again, of the peasant (and the gypsy) at ://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E1DA1630F931A35752C1A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

See this update, read with mixed feelings here because how else do people get around: ://www.gadling.com/2007/11/20/the-death-of-an-anachronism-horse-carts-banned-from-romanian-ro/

Cluj Napoca - Transylvania

For any who think that cities in faraway places are small, see this site - a roving aerial view of a very cosmopolitan area - www.cluj4all.com/addresses/. Here is Cluj - see ://www.clujonline.com/
Photos at ://www.ici.ro/romania/en/orase/cluj.html.


To navigate in any city, we look for the country's equivalent of the "city center" sign - centrum, or something like that. The city center signs begin at the outskirts, and the motorways, and lead you right in. Go to the main square, then look for some place to sleep. We like to park once, then walk. No driving at night if possible - vehicles may not have lights, horse carts may not have reflectors. Everyone is careful. I saw no accidents except for the usual truck-car or car-car fender-benders.

Roma update - Colum McCann; and Leafpile photo gallery, Ina Zoon

The author of the novel, "Zoli," Colum McCann - the novel based roughly on the life of a Slovakian Roma poet, Branislawa Wajs (see Gypsies, Roma, Romani, and "Zoli" wrote this current events opinion regarding the larger Gypsy issue and the European Union - ://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/10/opinion/edmcCann.php. The article is entitled, "Gypsies Put Europe To The Test: The Roma of Romania and Bulgaria." International Herald Tribune.

The issue is how Romania, Bulgaria, and other countries regarding the European Union, will deal with their minority populations.

Here is a good photo gallery of Roma, done by "Leafpile" - //www.leafpile.com/TravelLog/Romania/Roma/Roma.htm. We were not comfortable taking pictures of Roma, looks like our over-concern for people's sense of privacy was off base. Do look at these.

Further update, on the poor vs. progress. This is 3/3/08: Read "On the Margins: Roma and Public Services in Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, With a Supplement on Housing in the Czech Republic," by Ina Zoon, Open Society Institute press 2001. Covers denials of health care, lack of adequate housing, and recommendations.