Petr Baroch: We started with six kids

Czech baseball fans can see more and more lime jerseys of Miners Kladno around in the past couple of years. Their A team currently plays in First League, where they were promoted a year before. We talked to Miners manager Petr Baroch after the first round.

Petr, Klado has been considered more of a hockey town for a long time. How long has baseball been in Kladno?

The town has a long baseball tradition. But very few people here know this, because as you said, Kladno is a hockey town till this day. Jarda Jágr is of course, known to everyone. But we were founded in 1990, when we were known as Laso Kladno. Then it got paused for a bit. I returned from the Netherlands in 2010 and Pavel Chadim and Michal Hanuš tried to convince me to put together baseball team here again, because we only had a softball team. So I told myself, “look, let’s try it”. And we started the team in 2010, when we had some six kids. In 2014 the men were black, women blue, kids red we put our foot down and said, we need to unify the colors and we created one club Miners Kladno. We wanted to be Knights, but Knights (Trutnov) took that name before us. So we told ourselves, alright we can’t be blue, we can’t be knights, so we will be miners.

So that’s where the green-black color, logo, the title came from. Since then we had an aim to renew everything. We started with baseball a lot, and it was a horrible journey. While we had 20 kids, 40 kids, 60, 80 and we couldn’t get over 100. So we started, after some agreement with Pavel Chadim, to recruit at schools, it was especially Tomáš Ovesný who helped us with it, because he gave us the idea. We have after-school activities at schools in Kladno and we have kiwileague, where we engage with school kids and those from the club. It is a nice competition, which is played in U9 and U7 categories. U9 might play four tournaments as we have some 70 kids in the club and then 30 from different schools. So there are about 100 kids to play and we also invite other teams like Eagles, Kotlářka, to refresh it a little. It is kinda funny, as it’s not just baseball, you jump over obstacles, crawl under them. The kids improve their athleticism as well as all coordination without knowing it. So that what we were able to do and we now have about 185 players younger than 23 years. With senior team we could say we are over 200 members and if we also count coaches it’s something over 250, which I think is a lot for 10 years.

14 years…

Ten years if I count from the beginning of Miners. But the development started in 2010, so it’s 10 years of Miners and 14 together.

You said you had six kids in the first year. Are some of them still with Miners?

Out of six boys there are two still with Miners. We usually recruit 40 kids and 20 of them leave in the first year. Thank God I have to say only the less talented kids usually leave, which is good, as hockey doesn’t take them from us. We are going in a different way, because we want the kids to play and we don’t have such a huge financial support. This plays a huge role in parents decisions.

You mentioned hockey. After all we all hear Kladno is simply a hockey town. What it’s like to have them for a competition? What does it mean for you? How difficult is it to build any ground in Kladno community for people to know that baseball exists?

As I said it’s difficult. Of course the most talented kids go to hockey and floorball, which is very popular right now. But I think we can do it the way that baseball is so nice and atypical. They have to think a lot while they play, so I think there are some kinds of people in Kladno, that we are able to interest. The city has 70 000 inhabitants and I think there is a pool to pick from. But there is still a lot of work from our coaches behind it, who go to different events in the town, they go to schools and show kids the baseball. I think that coaches we have now have something to offer to the kids but also the parents. Baseball is a family game, a community. If somebody starts it and they are good at it, they usually stay with it, because they simply miss it. Or when they leave, if they are not good enough in the game, they move to different positions like scorekeeping. I think we are doing a good job with referees, who we simply motivate and it’s a shame that Referee committee doesn’t put more money in. There is something to fix there still, to motivate guys more.

Let’s get back to you, you played abroad and in the Czech Extraliga. Did you bring any of these experiences to Kladno when you returned and if so which?

I think there’s really a lot. Netherlands gave a lot to me, as a professional league. I learnt a lot in the nation team as a player from Mike Griffin, with whom I’ve been in the national team for eight years. Basically the coaches that we had, be it Trott Nixon, Corey Lee, but also players I could mention. But it was what you wanted to see. You want to see the professional baseball and that you don’t have to have such salary as Ohtani. You have to behave like a professional to those players for them to respect you. They have to know they have a support in you, that’s very important. I am such undeveloped coach still, because I still have emotions like a player. It’s about when I’m a bit older, the experience will be there. But it’s coming from Mike, that you always have to be calm and things have to make sense to you. If it makes sense to you, you can forward it to the players, they usually don’t have an issue with it. But if you can’t explain it to them, which Mike always did, I can’t remember in my eight years that there was any player who gets upset not to play. Even when we had 4 players we had to scratch out and it was always 50-50 that we didn’t know whether it should be this one or that one, they always thanked Mike for openness.

I am happy that I could be in PRO5 two years ago, and they have these experiences. I was a third base coach, a first base coach, I hit groundballs. And that’s something that kickstarts you and that’s where you get the experience. You see the players and you want to give the same to Czechs, so they can be the same as in the America. Everyone gets a chance to showcase their skill, that they are good enough and that’s what the players need to feel coming out of you. That’s why I’m really happy we were promoted to First League. We have young players and we let them play. I could buy players from abroad, but why? I am against foreign players, in a good way, because I want Czech baseball to be good and the boys to be good. So they can go to WBC against Ohtani. There Satoria or some other Czech player can throw another Worker. And we can laugh at it in 10 years. Sometimes I feel Extraliga teams want success just too much, but they don’t want to build the team. I understand, in First League the view is different, but even in Extraliga the older players have to know in the right moment it’s over and they have to start giving the youngsters the valuable advice. Our goal is to keep the older players as coaches, so they can share their knowledge further. That’s what we need to get back to the community, because it’s difficult to be a good coach and never play the game, to just see it in the television. You have to have the experience, so I think that’s the way to do it.

You also lead National Baseball Program. You see a lot of talent in the Czech Republic and you can compare them with the ones in your team. Who should the fans keep an eye on? Who was the largest potential in your opinion?

There are many talents there. Aleš Zhao has a huge potential, and he could show this in Extraliga this year. I think Ondřej Vostatek is another player who should throw in Porto Rico and I think he could show what he’s got. He should get the chance. But it depends how good he is, because I said clearly that if we were to play in Promotion League, he will play for us. I can change it, because we will see who will be in the Promotion League. Then there is Filip Kučera, who could be a pitcher. It will be difficult for him in the infield, where he plays and bats, because there are of course other guys who play in America. But he could show up on the pitching mound. Another such prospect is Vojtěch Kulík. It’s probably these four that I think can get to the national team and Extraliga.

My next question is about the field. You as Miners exist for 10 years, then over 30 years altogether. I seem to remember club was doing some additions and renovations. What do you plan in the following years?

In the next few years, I hope because the city promised us, we might start building the area in 2026. The city now picked the architect who draws the plans. By the end of the year we should have the building plans and at the beginning of the next year we should…I am not sure what they are called, but it’s basically that the process for the companies should start and in 2026 we should start building. I am not an optimist, but a realist, so I’m hoping. Once there are excavators here then I start saying we are building. But we never been this close in the past 35 years. So we are happy there is a field at the seventh and eighth primary school, that we use for your young players between 5 and 9 years. For U11 we managed to get football field of the former Sparta Doly Kladno some ten years ago and we are fixing it now. There is one football field and an asphalt field. When we connect them there should a nice baseball field in 2026, that will have some 95, 95, 115 meters with a proper children’s of football field with 67 meters top of it. It’s a big goal. It will be a huge challenge, because everyone wants to know already where will we train. I think it will be great to get those 11 categories we have right now on the same field and we might need to play a year outside of our field. But the urge to get a new field is so strong, we don’t mind play our home games at the opponent’s fields. As long as it’s being built.

I also mentioned you do NPB and lead Kladno. How do you find time?

It is difficult. But look…it’s difficult in one thing. I always thought that there is a free time in winter season, but in the end that’s where I have the most work. We have the most camps there. I didn’t realize it at the beginning. During the seasons I visit different clubs. And I’m away on the weekends with Kladno. If I didn’t have such a great wife, it would be impossible. Naturally, you have to return it back to the family when you are free. There are not many free days, but you have to find them fast. Right now I like it, it gives me purpose. And I like that boys I played with or that I coached return to NBP program now and that’s great.