I suppose that the ensuing piece is as much a prayer for the inclusion of baseball in the 2024 Paris Olympics as it is a history of baseball in France. My hope is that this history will convince the powers that be to honor France's baseball heritage by including it in the Olympics for Paris 2024.
Baseball first arrived on French soil by way of the Spalding World Tour of 1889. The inaugural game was played on March 8th of that year at the Parc Aérostatique in front of a 1500 strong crowd. Spalding had organized this tour to proselytize the game beyond America. It included stops in Britain, Italy, Egypt and of course France. The success of the tour is a matter of debate given that baseball did not become the main sport in any of the visited countries. However, all of these countries do have national baseball associations today.
In France, the tour was sufficiently successful so as to spur a number of schools into forming their own teams. It was remarked that this new American game was similar to the French game thèque, a game not too dissimilar to rounders. The game would get a further lift courtesy the industrialist and pioneering balloonist Émile Dubonnet. Dubonnet would finance France's first national baseball championship in 1913. He also formed the French Baseball Union, France's first foray into professional baseball. Professional baseball is played in France to this day.
M. Dubonnet was very optimistic about the future of French baseball and he had reasons to be. American expats were coordinating with Albert Spalding to popularize the game in their adopted country. Spalding himself believed that the French would embrace baseball as they had boxing from Britain. Exhibitions in early 1914 put on John McGraw and Charles Comiskey would have been fine affairs, if not for the miserable weather. The future of French baseball seemed bright. Alas, dark storm clouds began to gather to the east that would soon envelop France and the world.
Any attempts to make the French adopt baseball en masse were quickly scuttled as the Schlieffen plan became a bloody and difficult reality for France. Four long years of mechanized slaughter would begin in the summer of 1914 and there was little room for sport. Still, foreign troops brought the game with them to the trenches. First it was the Canadians who brought it over. By 1915, they were playing a team of assembled locals in Dieppe. (later the site of perhaps the most painful moment in Canadian military history) The French for their part saw baseball as a handy way to teach grenade throwing. As America joined the war in 1917 the French authorities even went so far as to publish Comment Jouer a la Balle Au Camp, a guide for playing baseball distributed to French soldiers. Major leaguers who served on the western front would offer differing views on the French soldiers' mastery of said guide. Some despaired of the French ballplayers. Bill Lange and Christy Matheson were particularly dismissive of the French ballplayer. Others, like John McGraw had more prosaic outlooks, and he finally did get his exhibition games in Paris played in 1924.
The inter-war years led to important developments and good progress but perhaps not to the expectations of McGraw and Spalding before him. For starters, big leaguers actually did play in Paris during the 1920s and 30s. Collegiate baseball also became a thing in places like Toulouse and Dijon. Even years after WW1, teams still existed within the French military which often sought out challengers. The McGraw-Comiskey expedition of 1924 even succeeded in sparking the creation of the Féderation Française du Baseball of which the two men would be named honorary vice-presidents. The new organization would have local star power too. It would be headed by then French Olympic Committee secretary and former Olympian (1896, 1900) Frantz Reichel. Reichel was more a general sports enthusiast than a strict baseball fan but he was an experienced and effective organizer. He was sufficiently successful so as to oversee the first French national championship in 1926 and even into the 1930s he was able to preserve interest within the French military. A trilateral international competition of sorts would also emerge during the 1930s with Belgium and the Netherlands as well as sporadic games with Spain. France performed respectably with the occasional win over the Dutch and frequent wins over the less seasoned Belgians. Still, the game stagnated enough amidst the economic troubles and looming threat of Nazi Germany that France had all but bowed out of international competition by 1937. It all but ceased to exist in France during the Nazi occupation.
Baseball would return to France upon the allied liberation of the country. Again it would be through American and Canadian troops. However, France was no longer as high a priority in spreading baseball to Europe. Italy and Germany got priority. Given the high number of Italian Americans in MLB, including the Joe DiMaggios and Phil Rizzutos of the world, Italy was a natural choice. In Germany, baseball became a tool in the denazification program, used a means of educating German youth on democratic ideals. Still, France was not left entirely in the lurch. The European Baseball Federation was formed in 1952 with the inaugural meeting being held in Paris. The founding members were France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and West Germany and French was decided on as the lingua franca of the organization. France would from there on be a regular participant in European competition. The French team was largely composed of pieds noise hailing from French Tunisia and Morocco. Marcel Cohen, a French Tunisian was the driver in recruiting the North African contingent of the French team. Still, results were uninspiring and the struggles would be compounded further as France's colonial empire fell apart. Between 1955 and 1983, the French managed but two wins against thirty nine losses in continental competitions, many with lopsided scorelines. France's withdrawal from NATO further weakend baseball's grip on the country as American troops stationed in France left. The period from 1930-1980 can perhaps be called the dark age of French baseball.
If those were the dark ages the 1980s were the renaissance. Perhaps the revival of French interest in baseball can be attributed to an increased affinity for the quintessentially American. Whatever the cause, the 80's saw the founding of some of France's best clubs (ex: Rouen Huskies and Montpelier Barracudas) and the construction of new, more polished baseball facilities. The national team performance too improved, going 4-4 to finish a creditable fifth and winning as many games in one tournament as they had in the previous 35 years. They would match this record in the 1991 edition to finish fourth and fourth again in 1993. They placed fifth in the 1995 tournament for a slight drop-off but Armand Fau was named to the team of the tournament. He would be the first French player to be signed abroad by going to an industrial league team in Japan. Speaking of Japan, the steady drive of the national team towards success was led by former Hanshin Tigers star and NPB Hall of Famer Yoshio Yoshida.
Yoshida moved on after the 1995 European Championships but the foundation he left behind would remain. France would again finish fifth in the 1997 Euros, but above .500 for the first time at 5-3. Hardware would finally come at the close of the millennium as the tricolore went a sterling 6-2 for bronze under American Ian Jordan. Quebec born Robin Roy led qualifying pitchers in ERA for the tournament. They would also qualify for three Baseball World Cups but fail to register a win in any of them. They had come a long way from the doldrums of the 1950s to 1970s.
In parallel, the French national league saw an influx of foreign talent playing there which naturally helped boost the quality of play. Canadian Jeff Zimmerman would parlay his experience in France into a contract with the Texas Rangers in MLB. He would go on to a successful career in Texas including an All Star appearance in 1999 before arm injuries forced premature retirement. French clubs began to also give good accounts of themselves in European competition. Rouen in particular has been a player in European club tournaments and has even been a finalist at the Euro Cup in 2007. Rouen is also the current French champion. Montpellier is also a frequent participant in European competition. Currently the French league plays a 28 game format with games scheduled on weekends among the 8 teams. The top 2 go directly to the semifinal with 3-6 battling for the remaining two spots. Last place is relegated to the second tier as happens in soccer a fair bit.
In the World Baseball Classic era, in which the WBC has replaced the World Cup as the premier international baseball competition, France has attempted to qualify for the 2013 and 2017 editions. In 2013, they lost both fo their games to South Africa and eventual qualifiers Spain. In 2017, they began their campaign losing to Panama before eliminating Spain for their first ever WBC qualifier win. Alas, their campaign would end with a second loss to Panama who in turn would miss out on qualification losing to Colombia. The team would then make waves by announcing the appointment of French born former Padres and Giants manager Bruce Bochy as national team boss. Given that the WBC qualifiers were placed on hold due to the pandemic, it remains to be seen if France will attempt a third campaign and if Bochy will lead the way.
To date, there have been a handful of French born major leaguers. Most notable are pitcher Charlie Lea, son of an American serviceman stationed in France, and the aforementioned Bruce Bochy who is also the son of an American serviceman. Lea played eight seasons in French speaking Montreal with the Expos and Bochy was a catcher who went on to a brilliant managerial career. Note, Bochy is the only European born manager to win a World Series. France is currently ranked 23rd by the WBSC in the world and remains a regular participant in international competition.
Two Frenchmen currently ply their trade in the American affiliated minor leagues. Ernesto Martinez is the son of a Cuban baseball player who played in France and was himself born in Holguín. He is 21 years of age and currently plays in the Class A Carolina Mudcats in the Milwaukee Brewers system. He is their 28th ranked prospect and has a healthy .880 OPS with 9 homers and 41 RBI. He has been on the French national team since the age of 16 and he is expected to play a more prominent role as he matures. The other is Montpellier's Yoan Antonac who is a pitcher in the Philadelphia Phillies organization. He is with the Clearwater Thrashers and has recently been activated from the IL so he has only pitched about seven innings this season. He is also 21, a few months younger than Martinez.
As the game grows in France, we can only hope that all the promise that Albert Spalding saw there a century ago can be realized. There is young talent there and MLB is doing its part by organizing camps for promising players there. Trailblazers are also doing their part to take the French game to the next level. With the 2024 Paris Olympic Games coming up, perhaps the inclusion of baseball in the Olympic program is the spark needed to bring Spalding's vision to pass. A successful WBC qualifying campaign would be a great step forward and perhaps a good way of convincing the powers that be to allow a French baseball team to take the field at their Olympic Games. Who knows what kind of incredible story we can covering then if only a French baseball team gets a chance to create it.
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