IBD - Institute for Baseball Development

IBD is a private program to support baseball development. This new program is based on the activities of the SuperCup organizing committee, a U-10 kids tournament, organized already for four years in Prague. The founders of IBD are Jiri Benatcan, Jiri Herold and Bohumil Bilek, all people with a long term experience and a positive approach to the game of baseball.

Program goals:

  • Support of the game of baseball with a special focus on kids up to 10 years old
  • Continuous emphasis on positive social and moral aspects of the game
  • Popularization of baseball in general within the society

Tools:

  • Organization of tournaments and competitions
  • Public and expertize education
  • Fund raising to support baseball activities and development (financial, material)

IBD closely collaborates with the Czech Baseball Association and namely with it`s Youth Development Commission. IBD plans to establish a close collaboration also with CEB and its member organizations, as well as with IBAF.

IBD has no intent to take over or substitute any operational issues of CBA or other formal bodies. The vision of IBD is to replenish not used opportunities in relation to the society in whole, spread information about baseball and its simplified variations among school kids and their parents. Also to involve not-organized school kids in the preparatory forms of baseball, like Hand Baseball, School Masters etc.

The short term goal of IBD is the organization of the SuperCup (further SC) as a top international tournament, considering both sports and media view, because this project represents the key tool to promote baseball to the society. This biggest tournament of its kind in Europe is also based on an integrated cooperation with the basic rounds, Bronze and Silvers SuperCups, organized in the Czech Republic and to give them both logistics and media support.

A natural part of SC became also the Masters competition, which was designed to develop basic skills, inevitable for every baseball player. Updated conversion tables and related long term statistics will set a basic parameter for a long term contribution of this form to the game. It is our goal to establish a similar system of statistics also for higher age categories.

It is a top motto for IBD to influence all kids, coaches, parents, fans or random spectator to consider baseball as game with high moral, free of any corruption, enmity, racial, religious, health or social prejudices and to develop sportsmanship, fair-play and love to the game.

We can also see reserves in raising material and financial sources, which are inevitable for a systematic work with young players, covering all chain from club level up to the international level.

As one of the key platforms for baseball development in the Czech Republic we would like to affect conditions for a regular presence of MLB magazine on some of the number of sport TV channels. Avoiding media would block increasing financial support of baseball and thus increase the interest in the game among youngsters and their parents.