FINLAND - CIRCA 1995: a stamp printed in the Finland shows Paivi Ikola, Pesapallo Player, National Sport of Finland, circa 1995 ©boris15/123RF.COM

Finnish Pesäpallo

Scandinavian Baseball

Scandinavian Baseball (Pesäpallo, Brännboll) are Baseball games that are closer to Rounders than the Modern American Sport, and although Pesapallo (Finland’s National Sport) has been modernised a great deal, the other Scandinavian versions of the sport (e.g. Brännboll) are very much still traditional sports like Rounders and would undoubtedly have the same roots.

Finnish Pesäpallo

Pesäpallo is the Finnish version of Baseball and is their National Sport. It has an unusual form of pitching where the pitcher stands beside the batter and pitches the ball directly up in the air for the batter to hit. Players also must run zig-zags through the bases which are placed making a shape something more the letter ‘P’ than a square as in most forms of Baseball, Softball and Rounders. The ball must be hit within the bounds in all directions unlike American Baseball. There is a game played on their National Holiday every year at the Finnish Embassy in Ireland. The field is as big as an American Baseball field unlike the smaller fields used by Softball, Rounders and other Old World Baseball games. It is therefore like the Major League of Old World Baseball and Rounders sports

Here is a Video of the sport from the New York Times, as shared by the Irish-Finnish Society on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/IrishFinnishSociety/posts/1326676680678956 [Accessed 27 June 2019]