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Also referred to as Finnish Baseball, Pesapallo is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is considered to be Finland’s national pastime. This variant of baseball is also played in Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Australia and the northern Ontario regions of Canada, considering that there is a significant Scandinavian population in these regions. Pesapallo is basically a combination of various ball-hitting team games, including rounders and baseball. The clear differences in the Finnish game begin with the act of pitching as there is no mound to speak of. Instead, pitchers stand next to the batter and toss the ball over the plate vertically.
Nearly every pitch is put in play, which forces fielders to go on the run to make a defensive play. Unlike baseball in North America, players can’t call for time between plays or pitches in Pesapallo. There is no need for relief pitchers in late inning scenarios in Pesapallo as the starting pitcher throws every inning of every regular season game. There is also a clear difference in the way that players run through the base paths as they will run in a zigzag pattern, as opposed to the conventional baseball diamond pattern. A game of Pesapallo is played in 2 periods of 4 innings each. A team that scores more runs in its offensive half-innings will win a period. If both teams win one period, an extra inning will be played, and if necessary, a round similar to that of a hockey or soccer penalty shoot out where each team will try to bring a player home from third base.
9 players will be on the field defensively. The pitcher is stationed next to home plate. A catcher plays in the infield next to second base. All 3 bases have their basemen and 2 additional shortstops will play close to second and third base. Only 2 outfielders will be present. Players can change their positions and reconfigure their defensive alignment in any way they wish. Different positioning depends on the situation, including if the defensive team is anticipating particular types of hits. Players change their positions depending on where the offensive base runners are.
The offensive team has 9 batters and 3 additional batters that are called jokers who serve as wild card batters. Normal batters bat in a pre-designated batting order, the joker batters are allowed to change the batting order on the fly. Jokers typically consist of good batters that specialize in scoring or fast runners that take advantage of advancing on the base paths.
The manager of a Pesapallo team is sometimes referred to as a game leader, and plays an important role as he or she will give signals to offensive players by using a multicolored fan. The captains of both teams will face off in the hutunkeitto (draw of choice) which determines whose team will want to start the game on offense or on defense.
The first bounce of the ball must be within the play area and then roll over a line and remain in play. The back line on the fly counts as a foul ball. Foul territory also consist of the field’s front and sides. A batter who knocks a ball out of the park would count as a home run in baseball, but only as a foul ball in Pesapallo. Therefore, all home runs that are hit in Pesapallo are of the inside-the-park variety.
Catching a ball in flight doesn’t record an out, but forces all runners to advance to the next base. If they succeed in advancing, the runners must reach home plate without any more consequences, but if they fail to advance another base, then they are out.
Hitting a home run in Pesapallo involves a batter advancing to third base in a single play. After a home run is hit, that batter will return to third base to act as a normal base runner.
Pesapallo was featured as a demonstration sport in the 1952 Summer Olympics, which were held in Heisinki, Finland.
