FranceAndUS: Sports and Diplomacy Hiding in Plain Sight

Sport can promote diplomacy, even between kindred democracies.

For more than a century, different types of sports diplomacy have fostered stronger relations between the United States and its oldest ally, France. 

Although the cultural endeavors of food, fashion, or film drive public consciousness of citizen interactions, the French and American sports story hides in plain sight. Today sports serve as one of the more democratic milieus in both societies, thus sports diplomacy between these two countries is an instructive example of how this prism exhibits the intersection of sport and democracy. 

Read more via “FranceAndUS: Sports and Diplomacy Hiding in Plain Sight” by Carole Ponchon and Lindsay Krasnoff in SportandDev.org

Lessons from the FranceAndUS Frontlines

Sports can serve as tools to bring people together, empower women and girls, work towards social change, facilitate conflict resolution, and much more.

Yet sports are also a tool to aid bilingualism. For Americans in France, playing sports is one way to fast track learning French for doing so requires the ability to communicate with teammates, coaches, and officials, no matter how imperfect one’s grammar or conjugation. Meanwhile, learning about language in sports by watching sports media and films, or following sports figures’ social media platforms, can introduce different vocabulary and phrasings not formally taught in the classroom but used colloquially in everyday life. Lastly, whether as a participant or fan, sports can help foster a sense of community and belonging, which can help children thrive in another country, as lessons from the front- lines of the FranceAndUS project illustrate.

Read more about “Lessons in Bilingualism from the FranceAndUS Frontlines” in the Spring 2023 Bilingual Education in France Magazine, published by the Association of American Women of Europe.

View from France: Baseball, A Contrary History – Part 3

Contributed By Gaétan Alibert

This brief history of baseball in France and how the French view–or rather, how some French view(ed) the national American pastime as reflected in the French media, the only reliable record across all 130 years of this history–is in three parts. Part One provides the origin story for how baseball traversed the Atlantic and its early roots in the héxagone. Part Two details its Interwar and immediate post-1945 eras, while Part Three illustrates how the game transformed in the 1980s and is currently perceived, received, and played.

French baseball in the 1980s benefitted from a more widespread enthusiasm for American culture, and U.S. sports in particular, which helped the game move into a new era of development. The various oil shocks of the 1970s weakened traditional industries and new ones centered around culture, communications and sport were informed by, and fond of, cultural counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean. In France, new media outlets appeared within print, radio and television, including Canal+ in 1984, the country’s first private, pay-to-view television station. These trends paved the way for the welcome of other U.S. sports like the French Federation of American Football in 1985.  Magazines specializing in U.S. sports were created in the 1980s and 1990s: Newsport, Maxi Basket, Strike, Hockey Magazine, Sports Action and Baseball Magazine, to name but a few.

The general and sports media discussed baseball more in the 1980s than during the first three decades of the post-war period. But even this statement must be put into perspective, for the open-source press articles were rarer for the 1960s-2000s period. Nevertheless, its likely that the media took little interest in early 1970s-era baseball in France when there were just 10 clubs. The following decade brought baseball into a new reality. An article in Le Monde written on the sidelines of the 1987 European Club Cup, hosted by PUC that June, reported that the FFBS went from 900 members in 1981 to 8,000 in 1987. The end of the 1980s saw the creation of many clubs which are today pillars of French baseball and, notably, of its first baseball division such as champions of France, Huskies of Rouen. The Templars of Sénart, the Barracudas of Montpellier and the Cougars of Montigny were also established in the same era. 

Several events marked the close of the twentieth century and the evolving place of baseball in France. Japanese manager Yoshio Yoshida, who won the 1985 Japanese championship with the Hanshin Tigers, arrived at PUC in 1989; then from 1992 to 1995, he took the  reins of Les Bleus, which allowed France to participate in its first-ever world championship in Cuba in 1994. The decade was marked by France’s only European medal in a senior European competition during Euro 1999 (bronze).

But how was French baseball perceived beyond the growing number of enthusiasts? The sport remained niche and its treatment by the media alternated between a recognition of its qualities and a pejorative vision. In a Le Monde October 2 1984 article, the journalist reported on a baseball match between PUC and its great rival Nice Université Club (NUC), played at the Cipale in the Bois de Vincennes velodrome in Paris that had a rugby pitch in the middle. For him, “baseball does not lack things to please,” because “its practice requires skill, eye, good running speed and a good arm.” A year later, in the same newspaper, another writer gave a very different image of baseball:

“Throwing a ball, hitting it with a bat, sprinting for a hundred meters does not require exceptional athletic qualities. These are some of the reasons why baseball is America's most popular sport.” 

Further, the journalist opined, 

“For non-practitioners and the uninitiated, the game is easier to follow, less hermetic in any case than cricket, considered by the British as a way of life. But the value of baseball is questionable. After all, players are very often inactive...”

More than ten years later, according to coverage in Libération, France viewed baseball as a sport “radically foreign and therefore incomprehensible.” Baseball was even described as a “childish sport” to designate its dimension as a family sport in the United States. It is interesting to note that this article tried to understand the cultural importance of baseball in America, starting with the race for homeruns between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. It was 1998 and French media echoed this historic season, which revived the interest of baseball fans after the 1994-95 MLB strike, which fans felt was a betrayal. The homerun race, despite the steroids (which the French media did not hide), was impassioned by the impact it had on the American nation, then in the grip of the Bill Clinton / Monica Lewinsky scandal and the NBA lockout. The season was historic because it was also marked by the New York Yankees’ incredible campaign, which many consider to be the best team in MLB. L'Équipe Magazine filled its October 31, 1998 front page with the Bronx Bombers, an extremely rare occurance. 

EDF 2001 Taiwain

Then French baseball went through a crisis. During the 2000s, the FFBS lost registered players and was on the verge of bankruptcy for financial management problems. Baseball didn’t leave its niche confines despite some remarkable accomplishments: two new participations for Les Bleus in the world championship (2001, 2003), the Huskies of Rouen as the first French club in the final of the European baseball cup (2007), and several professional French players in MLB. This latter achievement included Joris Bert and Fred Hanvi, the first two players trained in France to sign with an MLB franchise, respectively with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2007 and the Minnesota Twins in 2009. 

Despite this precarious situation, French baseball at the start of the 2010s once again experienced a period of expansion, which is still ongoing today. Thanks to a new presidency, the FFBS is cleaning up its accounts and strengthening ties with North American baseball, in particular with the MLB. Initial results include participation in the World Baseball Classic qualifiers since 2012 and more recently, the announcement of the first official MLB matches in France, slated for 2025 in Paris. The work of clubs, leagues and the federation to promote baseball and softball throughout the territory has also made it possible to almost double the number of licensed players in 12 years, despite very limited financial resources and a flagrant lack of infrastructure. In 2021, the federation registered 11,825 baseball or softball practitioners, a record in its history [1].

Since 2010, women began to compete in baseball tournaments beyond the youth ranks. A French national women's baseball team was created, and Les Bleues won the first two women’s baseball Euros in 2019 and 2022. A symbol of the revival of women’s baseball in France, 15-year-old Mélissa Mayeux became the first woman registered on the MLB international recruitment list in 2015. Moreover, the FFBS, alongside the World Baseball Softball Confederation, was part of the creation of Baseball5, a new street baseball practice that will be part of the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games.

There’s also been an increased baseball presence in the media and on social media. French participation presence in the WBC Qualifier, coached twice by MLB glories (Eric Gagné in 2012 and 2016, Bruce Bochy in 2020 and 2022) contributed to the chatter, as did the international buzz around Mélissa Mayeux, the arrival of MLB on television via beIN Sports in 2014, and the development of a dynamic community on social networks, especially Twitter, with sites and podcasts such as The Strike Out, Hype, A Coup Sûr or The Free Agent. These developments partly explain baseball’s increased media exposure in France in recent years. 

Just consult the articles published by L'Équipe, the media reference for sport in France. Like many national media, L'Équipe has long discussed baseball through doping or other unusual stories. Since the end of the 2010s, the site has continued to offer new informational coverage, focusing its articles on sports performance in MLB, in French baseball, or even major events: WBC Qualifiers, MLB lockout, Euro Féminin 2022, etc.

As a result, baseball’s media coverage is more normalized today. For 130 years, it alternated between praise and mockery, arousing curiosity or being made fun of. There was, on the part of the journalists, a very strong subjectivity. And not just for baseball. 

Today, baseball is information like any other, which does not prevent us from seeing that its media treatment sometimes raises one of the sticking points systematically put forward: it’s Americanness. As the magazine L'Express noted in 2012, baseball’s media coverage remained U.S.-centric, for,  

“In France, baseball is still perceived as a strictly American sport. Who knows, for example, that the twelve best European nations are gathered in the Netherlands (Harleem, Rotterdam, Amsterdam), from September 7 to 16, for the European championship organized every two years?”

What about beyond the media sphere? The era of social media allows a glimpse of the image that baseball can have in France through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. They provide platforms for everything. Some like baseball, some don't. Among this last category, there are often the same arguments: it’s a slow, boring sport with complicated rules that only Americans can understand and love. The chaotic temporality of baseball, made up of waiting times and brief actions, combined with its particular mechanics compared to most team sports, built around two teams and an incessant coming-and-going, a sport both strange and foreign. It is the same with cricket. These are certainly two of the most mocked sports in France, some even arguing that baseball and cricket, unlike football, are not real sports. It is ironic when you know that baseball and cricket were put forward to explain the athletic superiority of American or British athletes and soldiers during the first half of the twentieth century.

It goes without saying that Major League Baseball players are accomplished athletes, but it is also true that the particular temporality of baseball and the three-hour games in MLB raise questions, in France and in the United States, as indicated an article from Agence France Presse in July 2018, relayed by Le Point magazine. “In general, baseball is starting to lose its influence in the United States. Three-hour matches with little action (or visible action only to the very insider eye) are struggling to captivate viewers in 2018.” This temporality is a brake on baseball’s development in terms of the imagination needed to practice it and its ability to seduce through a screen.

If baseball is a familiar element in American cinema and TV series or Japanese anime, it remains an exotic sport despite 130 years of existence on French soil. It is not uncommon for a person to be surprised to discover that there are baseball or softball clubs in France. This person will be even more surprised to learn that there are 240 clubs and around 12,000 practitioners. It took time for the French game to get up to speed and to consider communication a necessity to develop batting sports in France. The French baseball-softball community has now jumped on the bandwagon, a dynamism that played a key role in France’s win to host MLB matches in 2025. 

But there is still a lot of work needed to close the gap between the French public and the American National Pastime. In a sporting country which lacks sporting culture, baseball is more than a sport; it is above all an art of living against the backdrop of today's ever-accelerating society, which offers to take its time. One of the reasons for baseball’s initial success was precisely that its temporality fought against the oppressive society of an industrial revolution which stole the time of the urbanites. Baseball recalled peaceful life in the countryside, even if it was partly a fantasy. That was its strength then, just as now it is a weakness.

In 2024, the French Baseball Softball Federation will celebrate its centenary in the shadow of the Paris Olympic Games, which shunned these two main disciplines. However, it will celebrate this centenary within a positive dynamic where the baseball community of France will prepare to welcome MLB the following year. Perhaps even it might be a White Sox-Giants rematch. In any case, this event will be an opportunity to measure what the French think of baseball and to glimpse more of the future that awaits it.

This article would not be as complete without the historical work of Jean-Cristophe Tiné, former Secretary-General of the Fédération Française du Base-Ball et Soft-Ball, and author of the blog Une Histoire Oubliée d’un Sport Méconnu, a significant memorial to the first decades of baseball in France http://thenextbaseballcountrywillbefrance.blogspot.com/

Notes

[1] La FFBS gère également le cricket, même si ce dernier possède une association spécifique pour sa gestion financière, administrative et sportive, France Cricket. Le nombre de licenciés cricket au sein de la FFBS/France Cricket était de 1845 en 2021.

Original En Français

Mais le baseball français ne va pas rester à ce stade embryonnaire. Dans les années 1980, il va bénéficier de l’engouement en France pour la culture américaine, et notamment des sports US. Avec la fragilisation des industries classiques suite aux différents chocs pétroliers des années 1970, se développent de nouvelles industries autour de la culture, des communications et du sport, friandes de la culture venue d’outre-Atlantique. En France, de nouveaux médias écrits, radios et télévisés apparaissent, l’emblème de ce mouvement étant la création de Canal+ en 1984. C’est également le cas parmi les sports US qui accueillent la fondation de la Fédération Française de Football Américain en 1985. Des magazines spécialisés dans le sport US, aux destins divers, se créent entre les années 1980 et 1990 : Newsport, Maxi Basket, Strike, Hockey Magazine, Sports Action ou Baseball Magazine pour ne citer qu’eux.

PUC 1980s

Mécaniquement, les médias généralistes, sportifs ou non, vont bien plus parler de baseball que durant les trois décennies qui ont suivi l’après-guerre. Même s’il faut relativiser cette affirmation, les articles de presse en source ouverte étant plus rares pour la période allant des années 1960 aux années 2000. Néanmoins, il est probable que les médias se sont très peu intéressés au baseball quand il ne comptait qu’une dizaine de clubs au début des années 1970. La décennie qui suit va faire entrer le baseball dans une nouvelle réalité. Un article du Monde écrit en marge de la coupe d’Europe des clubs 1987, que le PUC accueille en juin, nous apprend que la FFBS est passé de 900 licenciés en 1981 à 8000 en 1987. La fin des années 1980 voit la création de nombreux clubs qui sont aujourd’hui des piliers du baseball français et notamment de sa première division baseball comme les champions de France, les Huskies de Rouen, mais aussi les Templiers de Sénart, les Barracudas de Montpellier ou les Cougars de Montigny. Cette période de la fin du XXème siècle est marquée par plusieurs événements comme l’arrivée du manager japonais Yoshio Yoshida, qui a gagné le championnat japonais de 1985 avec les Hanshin Tigers. Il débarque au PUC en 1989 avant de prendre les rênes des Bleus de 1992 à 1995, permettant à la France de participer à son premier championnat du monde à Cuba en 1994. Une décennie marquée par sa seule médaille européenne en championnat d’Europe Senior, lors de l’Euro 1999.

Mais comment voit-on le baseball en France, au-delà des passionnés de plus en plus nombreux ? Il reste tout de même confidentiel et le traitement médiatique alterne entre reconnaissance de ses qualités et vision parfois plus péjorative. Dans Le Monde du 2 octobre 1984, un journaliste se rend à la Cipale, vélodrome du Bois de Vincennes à Paris, disposant d’un terrain de rugby en son centre, pour y voir un match entre le PUC et le NUC, le Nice Université Club, le grand rival du club parisien. Pour lui « le baseball ne manque pas d’atouts pour plaire », car « sa pratique réclame de l’adresse, du coup d’œil, une bonne vitesse de course et un bon bras ». Un an après, dans le même journal, une autre plume renvoie une image très différente du baseball « Lancer une balle, la frapper avec une batte, sprinter pendant une centaine de mètres n’exige pas de qualités athlétiques exceptionnelles. Telles sont quelques unes des raisons pour lesquelles le base-ball est le sport américain le plus pratiqué ». Plus loin, le journaliste surenchérit « Pour un non-pratiquant et un non-initié, le jeu est plus facile à suivre, moins hermétique en tout cas que le cricket, considéré par les Britanniques comme un mode de vie. Mais l’intérêt du base-ball est discutable. Après tout, les joueurs sont très souvent inactifs... ».

Plus de dix ans plus tard, dans Libération, le baseball est vu, pour la France, comme un sport « radicalement étranger et donc incompréhensible ». Le baseball est même qualifié de « sport puéril » pour désigner sa dimension de sport familial aux États-Unis Il est intéressant de remarquer que cet article essaie, tout de même, de comprendre l’importance culturelle du baseball en Amérique, avec comme point de départ la course aux homeruns du moment, celle de Mark McGwire et Sammy Sosa. Nous sommes en 1998. Les médias français vont se faire écho de cette saison historique qui va raviver l’intérêt des fans pour le baseball, après la grève MLB de 1994-1995 qui avait été vécue comme une trahison par les fans. La course aux homeruns, même stéroïdée, ce que ne cache pas les médias français, passionne par l’impact qu’elle a sur la nation états-unienne, alors en proie au scandale Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky au niveau politique, et au lock-out des patrons de la NBA dans le domaine sportif. La saison est historique car également marquée par l’incroyable saison des New York Yankees, que beaucoup considèrent comme la meilleure équipe qu’ait connu en MLB. L’Équipe Magazine mettra les Bronx Bombers en pleine page de sa Une du 31 octobre 1998. Un fait extrêmement rare.

Durant les années 2000, le baseball français traverse une crise. La FFBS perd des licenciés et se trouve au bord de la faillite pour des problèmes de gestion financière. Le baseball n’arrive pas à sortir de sa confidentialité malgré quelques faits remarquables : deux nouvelles participations en championnat du monde (2001, 2003) pour les Bleus, un premier club français en finale de la coupe d’Europe de baseball avec les Huskies de Rouen en 2007 et plusieurs joueurs français professionnels dont Joris Bert et Fred Hanvi, les deux premiers joueurs formés en France à signer avec une franchise MLB, respectivement avec les Los Angeles Dodgers en 2007 et les Minnesota Twins en 2009. Malgré cette situation précaire au début des années 2010, le baseball français va de nouveau connaître une période d’expansion, qui dure encore. Grâce à une nouvelle présidence, la FFBS assainit ses comptes et renforce ses liens avec le baseball nord-américain, notamment avec la MLB. Il en découle, dans un premier temps, une participation aux qualifiers de la World Baseball Classic depuis 2012 puis, plus récemment, l’annonce des premiers matchs officiels de la MLB en France, plus précisément en 2025 à Paris. Le travail des clubs, des ligues et de la fédération pour promouvoir baseball et softball sur l’ensemble du territoire a permis également de quasiment doubler le nombre de licenciés en 12 ans, malgré des moyens financiers très contraints et un manque flagrant d’infrastructures. En 2021, la fédération enregistrait 11 825 pratiquantes et pratiquants de baseball ou softball, un record dans son histoire.[1] 

Durant cette période, la mixité devenait possible pour le baseball au-delà de 16 ans et une équipe de France Féminine de Baseball était créée, remportant les deux premiers Euro de la discipline en 2019 et 2022. Symbole de ce renouveau du baseball féminin en France, Mélissa Mayeux devenait en 2015, à 15 ans, la première femme enregistrée sur la liste internationale de recrutement de la MLB. La FFBS était également à la création, avec la World Baseball Softball Confederation, du Baseball5, nouvelle pratique de street baseball qui sera présente aux prochains Jeux Olympiques de la Jeunesse de Dakar 2026.

Cette période a été marquée par une présence de plus en plus accrue du baseball dans les médias et sur les réseaux sociaux. La présence de la France en WBC Qualifier, coachée par deux fois par des gloires de la MLB (Eric Gagné en 2012 et 2016, Bruce Bochy en 2020 et 2022), le buzz international autour de Mélissa Mayeux, l’arrivée de la MLB sur beIN Sports en 2014 et le développement d’une communauté dynamique sur les réseaux sociaux, notamment Twitter, avec des sites et podcasts comme The Strike Out, Hype, A Coup Sûr ou The Free Agent, explique, en partie, l’exposition médiatique accrue du baseball en France ces dernières années. Il suffit de consulter les articles du site L’Équipe, la référence média du sport en France. Comme de nombreux médias nationaux, L’Équipe a longtemps parlé du baseball à travers le dopage ou des histoires insolites. Depuis la fin des années 2010, le site ne cesse de proposer une nouvelle offre informationnelle, axant ses articles sur les performances sportives, en MLB ou dans le baseball français, ou encore les grands événements : WBC Qualifier, lock-out MLB, Euro Féminin 2022, etc.

Le traitement du baseball dans les médias s’est normalisé. Pendant 130 ans, il a été, tour à tour, encensé et raillé, excitant la curiosité ou appelant à la moquerie. Il y avait, de la part des journalistes, une part de subjectivité très importante. Et pas que pour le baseball. Aujourd’hui, le baseball est une information comme une autre, ce qui n’empêche pas de voir que son traitement médiatique relève parfois l’un des points de blocage systématiquement mis en avant : son américanité. « En France, le baseball reste perçu comme un sport strictement américain. Qui sait, par exemple, que les douze meilleures nations européennes sont réunies aux Pays-Bas (Harleem, Rotterdam, Amsterdam), du 7 au 16 septembre, pour le championnat d'Europe organisé tous les deux ans? » s’interroge le magazine L’Express en 2012.

Qu’en est-il au-delà de la sphère médiatique ? L’ère des réseaux sociaux permet, à se promenant dans les méandres de Twitter, Facebook et autre Instagram, d’avoir un aperçu de l’image que peut avoir le baseball en France. Bien entendu, on trouve de tout. Certains aiment le baseball, d’autres non. Parmi cette dernière catégorie, on trouvera souvent les mêmes arguments : un sport lent, ennuyeux et aux règles compliqués que seuls les Américains peuvent comprendre et aimer. La temporalité chaotique du baseball, fait de temps d’attente et d’actions brèves, conjugué à sa mécanique particulière vis à vis de la plupart des sports collectifs, construits autour de deux camps et d’un incessant va-et-vient, en fait un objet à la fois étrange et étranger. Il en est de même avec le cricket. Ce sont certainement deux des sports les plus moqués en France, certains allant à dire qu’il ne s’agit pas de vrais sports, contrairement au football. Ironique quand on sait que le baseball et le cricket étaient mis en avant pour expliquer la supériorité athlétique des sportifs et soldats américains ou britanniques durant la première moitié du XXème.

Il va sans dire que les joueurs de la Major League Baseball sont des athlètes accomplis mais il est vrai aussi que le temporalité particulière du baseball et les matchs de trois heures en MLB pose question, en France et aux États-Unis, comme l’indique un article de l’Agence France Presse en juillet 2018, relayé par le magazine Le Point

« De manière générale, le baseball commence à perdre de son influence aux États-Unis Les matches de trois heures avec peu d'action (ou une action visible seulement pour un œil très initié) ont du mal à captiver les spectateurs en 2018 ».

Cette temporalité est un frein au développement du baseball en ce qui concerne l’imaginaire que l’on s’en fait pour le pratiquer et sa capacité à séduire derrière un écran. 

Si le baseball est un élément familier par le cinéma et les séries TV américaines ou les animes japonais, il reste un sport exotique malgré ses 130 ans d’existence sur le sol français. Il n’est pas rare qu’une personne s’étonne de découvrir qu’il existe des clubs de baseball ou de softball en France. Cette personne sera encore plus étonnée d’apprendre que le nombre de clubs est de 240 et le nombre de pratiquants d’environ 12 000. Alors qu’Internet se développait à grande vitesse, FFBS, clubs et passionnés, à quelques exceptions près, ont mis du temps à se mettre à la page et à considérer la communication comme une nécessité pour développer les sports de batte en France. La communauté française du baseball softball a désormais pris le train en marche. Son dynamisme a été une des clés du succès afin que la France obtienne des matchs MLB en 2025. Mais il reste encore beaucoup de travail pour réduire la distance entre le public français et le National Pastime américain, dans un pays sportif qui manque de culture sportive, alors que le baseball, plus qu’un sport, est avant tout un art de vivre à rebours de la société actuelle toujours en accélération, lui qui propose de prendre son temps. L’un des raisons du succès du baseball à sa création était justement que sa temporalité combattait la société oppressante d’une révolution industrielle qui volait le temps des urbains, le baseball rappelant la vie paisible en campagne, même si cela relevait en partie du fantasme. Ce qui fut sa force à l’époque est désormais sa faiblesse.

En 2024, la Fédération Française de Baseball Softball fêtera son centenaire à l’ombre de Jeux Olympiques parisiens qui ont boudé ces deux principales disciplines. Cependant, elle pourra fêter ce centenaire au sein d’une dynamique positive où la France du baseball se préparera à accueillir la MLB l’année suivante. Pour, peut-être, un White Sox-Giants. En tout cas, cet événement sera l’occasion de mesurer ce que les Français pensent du baseball et d’entrevoir un peu plus l’avenir qui l’attend ici.

Remerciements : cet article n’aurait pas été aussi complet sans le travail d’historien mené par Jean-Christophe Tiné, ancien secrétaire générale de la FFBS, et auteur du blog Une Histoire Oubliée d’un Sport Méconnu, formidable travail mémoriel sur les premières décennies du baseball en France : http://thenextbaseballcountrywillbefrance.blogspot.com/

Gaétan Alibert is a writer on baseball and sports culture, author of Une histoire populaire du baseball (blacklephant editions), host of the Culture Baseball podcast, and contributor to HYPE Sports, The Strike Out and Ecrire Le Sport. He is also a member of Federal Memory commission of French Baseball Softball Federation. Follow him on Twitter @GaetanAlibert.

View from France: Baseball, A Contrary History – Part 2

Contributed by Gaétan Alibert

Babe Ruth in Paris, 1935

This brief history of baseball in France and how the French view–or rather, how some French view(ed) the national American pastime as reflected in the French media, the only reliable record across all 130 years of this history–is in three parts. Part One provides the origin story for how baseball traversed the Atlantic and its early roots in the héxagone. Part Two details its Interwar and immediate post-1945 eras, while Part Three illustrates how the game transformed in the 1980s and is currently perceived, received, and played.

Baseball wasn’t far from the limelight in the 1920s, which were a new era of growth for the National American Pastime in France, particularly in the Parisian region. A Paris league was created in 1921 and, in 1924, the French Federation of Baseball and Theca (FFBT) oversaw the early November return of the Giants and White Sox. This time, the U.S. teams played two games in Colombes in front of several thousand people, notably members of the American community whose numbers were strong in the Parisian metropolitan region. Moreover, legendary Giants manager John McGraw and the celebrated owner of the White Sox Charles Comiskey were honorary vice presidents at the behest of the FFBT.

The FFBT was created by Frantz Reichel, an eminent multi-sport athlete and director. Fiercely opposed to professional sport, he integrated several federations to guarantee amateur play and, in some cases, created federations to ensure that sport would not become professional, as in the case of baseball. Reichel wasn’t alone in this effort to protect sporting amateurism. Many clubs were founding members, notably Paris Université Club (PUC), a big omnisports club that began its baseball activities in 1923. PUC is the only surviving baseball club from this era, which thus makes it the oldest club of the French Federation of Baseball Softball (FFBS).

Although baseball remained embryonic and essentially a Parisian endeavor, the federation’s creation was an important milestone in the sport’s development. In 1926, the first baseball championship of France was launched and the French national team played its first official match in 1929. The league’s results were covered by the press, which noted that institutions like the Police prefecture, Parisian public transportation networks, and the PTT (Post, Telegram, and Telephone Office) had teams in the league, a sign that baseball increasingly expanded beyond the  lonely confines of American expatriates. AS Transports took home the first French championship title in a victory against Ranelagh BC. Baseball’s increased media coverage in France enabled journalists to more regularly transport readers across the Atlantic and relay news of American baseball, particularly a player named Babe Ruth. 

Babe Ruth’s notoriety was inscribed in several articles, and his salary was often much discussed. He even gave an interview to L’Intransigeant, published January 18, 1935, when he was in Paris, a fascinating exchange in which the legend responded to the question, “Do you think baseball can take over in Europe?”

“Yes, why not?” Ruth said. “In France, you would have what’s needed. For example, while walking on your boulevards, I saw well-balanced guys. You would just need to have good coaches, and baseball would need to be started very young, at six or seven years old.”

Major league salaries constantly surprised French journalists in the first half of the twentieth century. So, too, did the profits from gate receipts, as Le Figaro reported on October 17, 1923 in its announcement of the New York Yankees' first championship title. “The six matches made a total of more than three million francs!”

Baseball’s 1920s dynamic continued into the 1930s. It remained a closeted sport, but it existed and made the talk of the town from time to time. The prestigious journal L’Auto even sponsored an international tourney between France, Belgium, and the Netherlands in June 1937 at Pershing Stadium in Paris; coverage of the competition noted,

“The French know little about this game, which is the national game of the Americans. Their technique is a bit disconcerting if you compare it to the sports practiced in Europe.”

Once again, the exotic aspect of the game strongly marked baseball. Although it remained a niche practice, another article in L’Auto from March 30, 1937, attempted to give the game another chance in the aftermath of a rugby match. The piece, “Le base-ball. On demande à revoir,” reluctantly noted the absence of pedagogy around baseball’s rules in order to make it more intelligible to a public that was curious, but ignorant, of the game. However, the reporter complimented the game,

“Yesterday, in any case, we realized the attractions and the spectacular side of this exercise. That’s already a huge point…In general, moreover, baseball appeared as a sport requiring extremely advanced training. It is obvious, for example, that passes made at full speed, at long distances and whose precision must be perfect, cannot be successful by ordinary mortals.” 

The reporter concluded that, “in a word, baseball appeared as a very complete, spectacular game, for which one understands that the masses can be passionate.”

Yet, baseball never became a mass sport. It was believed to have disappeared for a time during the Second World War. We now know that the French Baseball Federation continued its activities in the métropoloe and Tunisia, where baseball was introduced by an American, Dr. Kelly, before the war. It was also in Tunisia immediately post-war that French baseball became most developed and shined. Local newspapers chronicled weekly results of the senior and junior leagues, as well as activities of the Tunisian league–even its internal problems. The best players were featured, many of who were on the French national team. After Tunisia gained independence in 1956, many of its biggest baseball names went to France, joined clubs like PUC, or created their own teams, notably in the south of France. Baseball was also present in Morocco and Algeria during this period, although it was less developed than in Tunisia. 

On the mainland, American soldiers added to French baseball. Just as they did in the 1917 to 1919 era, the Americans practiced baseball on a grand scale through military championships as several Major League Baseball players (Sam Nahem, Ewell Blackwell, Dave Koslo, Merv Connors, Harry Walker, Murry Dickson) or those from the Negro Leagues (Leon Day, Monte Irvin, Willard Brown) were stationed in-country. Certain U.S. bases were akin to immense cities and had numerous baseball and softball pitches. Some soldiers even had the mission to introduce the French to baseball, such as Major Leaguer Zeke Bonura in 1944 in Marseille. It was not uncommon for matches to be advertised in the French press or to the local population. 

French media, both the written press as well as film documentaries, continued to treat baseball as the supreme cultural reference of America and a maker of unusual stories in the mid-to-late 1940s. Thus, the communist daily L’Humanité mentioned in its January 3, 1950 edition that the Saint Louis Cards hired a psychologist to help the team win. Libération on April 21, 1949, joked that the 29 members of the Ohio House of Representatives who individually sent a telegram to the Vice-President of the State to announce the death of their grandmother in order to justify their absence from the Congressional session, really used the fake family death to hide attendance at a Cincinnati Reds game. There was a full page devoted to the All-American Girls Professional League, the famous women's baseball league, in the March 1947 edition of V magazine, the journal of the National Liberation Movement, a former resistance organization. Like V or Libération, Franc-Tireur was a press organ from the Resistance. And like several French media, it devoted an article, including a photo, to Babe Ruth’s death in August 1948, confirming the status of the Bambino’s sporting legend in France.

An article from the daily newspaper L'Équipe on March 8, 1950, scratched the question about baseball when it asked, 

“Why is baseball the number one sport (in terms of popularity) despite two handicaps: short season and being a virtually non-existent spectacle?” 

Voilà, a point of view already raised on French opinion of baseball but which remained rare in the available sources. At the time of publication, as previously noted, baseball was often described as exactly the contrary: spectacular. The point of view of this article was perhaps shared by the majority of French people because, from the 1950s to the 1970s, French baseball remained embryonic, despite the presence of American bases until 1966, when the French withdrawal from NATO general command and General De Gaulle’s demands closed U.S. bases throughout the country. And with it, the baseball played on such military bases, including children’s Little League teams, one of which even qualified for the final tournament in the United States in 1962. Nonetheless, there wasn’t a strong link between this baseball and that practiced by French clubs.

Paris Université Club, 1969

A 1971 French television report presented by sports journalist Michel Drucker noted that France had 10 baseball clubs for 250 practitioners. He spoke of it as a “slightly mysterious sport” for the French. The report’s voice-over described baseball as a series of “mysterious rites” that can be understood after “a long initiation.” Drucker explained the rules then discussed baseball in the United States, with an initial focus on the professional game’s lucrative financials and a reference to a fascination for the wealth generated by this sport. A year earlier, an article of the famous daily Le Monde reported on 13 clubs. In this article of April 27, 1970, the journalist asked the question, “is it not sacrilege to play the American national sport in France?” The captain of PUC, future president of the FFBS Olivier Dubaut, answered, “This is exactly the kind of prejudice that harms us and that we want to fight.”

Original En Français

D’ailleurs, la lumière pour le baseball français n’est pas loin. En effet, les années 1920 vont voir une nouvelle poussée de croissance du sport national américain en France, particulièrement dans la région parisienne. Un championnat de Paris est créé en 1921 puis, en 1924, la Fédération Française de Baseball et de Thèque (FFBT) voit le jour en marge du retour en France, début novembre, des Giants et des White Sox. Cette fois-ci, les deux équipes peuvent jouer à Colombes deux rencontres de baseball qui vont ramener plusieurs milliers de personnes, essentiellement des membres de la communauté américaine, fort nombreuse à Paris et sa région. D’ailleurs, le manager des Giants, le légendaire John McGraw, et le célèbre propriétaire des White Sox, Charles Comiskey, seront les vice-présidents d’honneur à la création de la FFBT. Cette dernière est créée par Frantz Reichel, éminent membre du sport français, athlète multi-sport et grand dirigeant sportif. Farouchement opposé au sport professionnel, il va intégrer plusieurs fédérations pour y garantir l’amateurisme et, dans certains cas, créer des fédérations pour éviter que le sport ne devienne professionnel, comme dans le cas de la fédération de baseball. Reichel n’est pas seul à la création. Plusieurs clubs sont membres fondateurs, notamment le Paris Université Club, grand club omnisports parisien qui a débuté ses activités baseball en 1923 et qui reste le seul club survivant de cette époque, ce qui en fait le club doyen de la FFBS (Fédération Française de Baseball Softball).

Même si le baseball reste embryonnaire et essentiellement parisien, la création de la fédération permet de passer un cap en matière de développement. 1926 voit ainsi la création du premier championnat de France et 1929 le premier match officiel de l’équipe de France. Les résultats des championnats sont donnés par la presse, ce qui permet de savoir que des institutions telles que la Préfecture de Police, les transports parisiens ou les PTT (Poste, Télégramme et Téléphone) avaient des équipes au sein du championnat, signe que le baseball sort de plus en plus du seul giron des expatriés américains. C’est d’ailleurs l’AS Transports qui remporte le premier titre de champion de France face au Ranelagh BC. En plus de nous parler du baseball en France, la presse de l’époque peut régulièrement franchir l’Atlantique pour évoquer l’actualité du baseball américain, particulièrement un homme, Babe Ruth. La notoriété du Babe est telle que plusieurs articles lui seront consacrés, notamment pour évoquer son salaire. Il aura même droit à une interview dans le journal L’Intransigeant du 18 janvier 1935 quand il sera de passage à Paris. Un intéressant entretien où il répond à la question « Pensez-vous que le baseball puisse prendre en Europe ? » 

« Oui, pourquoi pas ? En France, par exemple, vous auriez des éléments. En me promenant sur vos boulevards, j’ai vu des gars bien balancés. Seulement, il faudrait que vous ayez de bons entraîneurs et le baseball doit être commencé très jeune, à six ou sept ans ».

D’une manière générale, les salaires dans les Ligues Majeures vont étonner plus d’une fois les journalistes français dans la première moitié du XXème siècle, ou bien les recettes de matchs, comme dans l’article que Le Figaro publie le 17 octobre 1923 pour annoncer le premier titre de champion des New York Yankees « Les six matches firent au total une recette qui dépasse trois millions de francs ! ».

La dynamique des années 1920 se poursuit la décennie suivante. Le baseball reste un sport confidentiel mais il existe, faisant même parler de lui de temps en temps. Le prestigieux journal L’Auto va même parrainer un tournoi international à trois, entre la France, la Belgique et les Pays-Bas, en juin 1937 au stade Pershing de Paris, écrivant dans l’article de présentation de la compétition « Les Français connaissent peu ce jeu qui est le jeu national des Américains. Sa technique déconcerte un peu si on la compare aux sports pratiqués en Europe ». Une nouvelle fois, l’aspect exotique du jeu est un marqueur fort du baseball, ce qui en fait encore une pratique insolite au sein du sport français, même si un autre article de L’Auto, datant du 30 mars de la même année, semble vouloir lui donner une chance après un match d’exhibition suivant un match de rugby. L’article titré « Le base-ball . On demande à revoir » regrette le peu de pédagogie autour des règles pour rendre le jeu intelligible à un public curieux mais ignorant du baseball. Mais il se montre aussi élogieux sur le jeu lui-même « Hier, en tout cas, on se rendit compte des attraits et du côté spectaculaire de cet exercice. C’est déjà un point énorme ». Plus loin « D’une façon générale d’ailleurs, le baseball apparut comme un sport exigeant un entraînement extrêmement poussé. Il est évident, par exemple, que les passes effectuées à toute volée, à des longues distances et dont la précision doit être parfaite, ne peuvent être réussies par le commun des mortels ». Et il conclut « En un mot, le base-ball apparut comme un jeu très complet, spectaculaire, et pour lequel on comprend que les masses puissent se passionner ».

Le baseball ne devînt pas un sport de masses. On crût même, pendant longtemps, qu’il avait disparu durant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. On sait maintenant que la Fédération Française de Baseball continua ses activités, tant en métropole qu’en Tunisie, où le baseball fut introduit par un américain, le docteur Kelly avant la guerre. C’est d’ailleurs en Tunisie, après-guerre, que le baseball français fut le plus développé et rayonnant. Les journaux locaux rendaient compte chaque semaine des résultats des championnats seniors ou jeunes ainsi que des activités de la ligue tunisienne, et même de ses problèmes internes. On y trouvait également les meilleurs joueurs et nombre d’entre-eux constituèrent l’équipe de France. Après que la Tunisie obtînt son indépendance en 1956, plusieurs grands noms du baseball tunisien vinrent en France, rejoignant des clubs comme le Paris Université Club ou créant leurs propres clubs, notamment dans le sud de la France. Le baseball fut également présent au Maroc et en Algérie durant cette période même s’il fut moins développé qu’en Tunisie.

En métropole, s’ajouta au baseball français, celui des soldats américains. Comme entre 1917 et 1919, les Américains pratiquèrent le baseball à grande échelle, au sein de championnats militaires où évoluèrent plusieurs joueurs de la MLB (Sam Nahem, Ewell Blackwell, Dave Koslo, Merv Connors, Harry Walker, Murry Dickson) ou des Negro Leagues (Leon Day, Monte Irvin, Willard Brown). Certaines bases américains étaient pareilles à d’immenses villes, disposant de nombreux terrains de baseball et de softball. Certains soldats eurent même comme mission d’initier les français au baseball comme le Major Leaguer Zeke Bonura en 1944 à Marseille. Il n’était pas rare que les matchs soient annoncés dans la presse française ou auprès de la population locale. Plus généralement, durant les deux dernières années de la guerre et dans l’immédiate après-guerre, les médias français, presse écrite ou documentaires filmés, continuèrent de traiter du baseball comme référence culturelle suprême de l’Amérique et faiseur d’histoires insolites. Ainsi, le quotidien communiste L’Humanité évoque, dans son édition du 3 janvier 1950, que les Cards de Saint Louis ont embauché un psychologue pour aider l’équipe à gagner. Ou encore cet article du journal Libération, en date du 21 avril 1949, s’amusant que les 29 membres de la chambre des représentants de l’Ohio, envoyèrent chacun un télégramme au vice-président de l’État pour annoncer la mort de leur grand-mère afin de justifier leur absence à la séance du Congrès, le faux décès familial cachant en réalité un match des Reds de Cincinnati. On pourrait ajouter la pleine page consacrée à la All-American Girls Professional League, la célèbre ligue féminine de baseball, dans l’édition de mars 1947 du magazine V, revue du Mouvement de Libération Nationale, ancienne organisation résistante. Comme V ou Libération, Franc-Tireur était un organe de presse issu de la Résistance. Et comme plusieurs médias français, il consacra un article, avec photo, à la mort de Babe Ruth en août 1948, confirmant le statut de légende sportive du Bambino, jusqu’en France.

Un article du quotidien L’Équipe, du 8 mars 1950, égratigne, quant à lui, le baseball « Pourquoi le base-ball est-il le sport numéro un (sur le plan de la popularité) malgré deux handicaps : saison courte, spectacle pratiquement inexistant ? ».

Voilà un point de vue déjà lu mais qui reste rare dans les sources disponibles sur l’avis que l’on se fait en France du baseball depuis son apparition, puisque à la publication de cet article, on l’a vu, le baseball a souvent été décrit comme, au contraire, spectaculaire. Le point de vue de cet article est peut-être partagé par la majorité des Français car, des années 1950 aux années 1970, le baseball français reste embryonnaire, malgré la présence de bases américaines jusqu’en 1966 et le retrait de la France du commandement de l’OTAN, le général De Gaulle exigeant la fermeture de bases US sur l’ensemble du territoire. Bases où on jouait au baseball, notamment les enfants au sein d’équipes de Little League, l’une d’elles se qualifiant même pour le tournoi final aux États-Unis en 1962. Il semble qu’il n’est pas existé de liens solides entre ce baseball et celui pratiqué par les clubs français. 

Un reportage de la télévision française de 1971, présenté par Michel Drucker, alors journaliste sportif, indique que la France compte 10 clubs pour 250 pratiquants. Michel Drucker parle d’un « sport un peu mystérieux » pour les Français. La voix-off du reportage parle, elle, du baseball comme fait de « rites mystérieux » que l’on peut comprendre après « une longue initiation ». Après avoir expliqué les règles, le journaliste évoque le baseball outre-Atlantique parlant en premier lieu de l’argent qui entoure le baseball, renvoyant là encore à une fascination pour les richesses que génère ce sport aux États-Unis Un an avant, un article du fameux quotidien Le Monde, parle de 13 clubs. Dans cet article du 27 avril 1970, le journaliste se pose la question s’il n’est pas sacrilège de jouer en France au sport national américain, ce à quoi le capitaine du PUC, futur président de la FFBS, Olivier Dubaut, répond « Voilà exactement le genre de préjugés qui nous fait du tort et que nous voulons combattre ».

This article would not be as complete without the historical work of Jean-Cristophe Tiné, former Secretary-General of the Fédération Française du Base-Ball et Soft-Ball, and author of the blog Une Histoire Oubliée d’un Sport Méconnu, a significant memorial to the first decades of baseball in France http://thenextbaseballcountrywillbefrance.blogspot.com/

Gaétan Alibert is a writer on baseball and sports culture, author of Une histoire populaire du baseball (blacklephant editions), host of the Culture Baseball podcast, and contributor to HYPE Sports, The Strike Out and Ecrire Le Sport. He is also a member of Federal Memory commission of French Baseball Softball Federation. Follow him on Twitter @GaetanAlibert.

View from France: Baseball, A Contrary History – Part 1

Contributed By Gaétan Alibert

This brief history of baseball in France and how the French view–or rather, how some French view(ed) the national American pastime as reflected in the French media, the only reliable record across all 130 years of this history–is in three parts. The first lays out the origin story for how baseball traversed the Atlantic and its early roots in the héxagone. Part Two details its Interwar and immediate post-1945 eras, while Part Three illustrates how the game transformed since the 1980s. 

The French know baseball, or rather, they know of its existence. Baseball is part of the imagined sports culture attached to ‘America,’ [1] through the cinema and TV series. Yet, other than recognizing the glove, the bat, ball, and red sox, the majority of French people don’t know much else about baseball. Most of the country’s 67 million people are totally disinterested in it and baseball suffers from a bad image: of a slow, boring game bound by complex rules that only Americans would understand and like. In this respect, its perceived similarly to the English sport of cricket. But, as its chaotic history in France shows, baseball has at times aroused curiosity and interest.

The first traces of baseball on French soil occurred in the 1880s between American expatriates, particularly within the artist colonies in Brittany, Normandy, the Nord Pas de Calais, and Paris. In their book Peintres Américains en Bretagne 1864-1914, David Sellin and Catherine Puget mention that American artists staying in Pont Aven and Concarneau played baseball in 1885. They continued to play in the following decades when they had enough people to play, particularly in Paris, with its massive presence of U.S. citizens. 

The first official baseball match organized in France was held on March 8, 1889, at the dawn of the grand Universal Exposition of Paris (World’s Fair). Two teams from Spalding’s World Tour,[2] the Chicago White Stockings (future Cubs) and an All-American selection of players from other major leagues, faced off in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in the aerostatic park Quai de Billy, today’s Avenue de New York. 

Even more interesting was a meeting on the game’s sidelines. AG Spalding, one of professional baseball’s founding fathers and prophet of the National Pastime, met with two of French sport’s leading men: Pierre de Coubertin and former communard Paschal Grousset. The aristocratic de Coubertin, who had not yet revived the Olympic Games, was a fervent fan of English-style sport, both at the amateur and elite levels. Grousset, a journalist condemned to prison for his participation in the 1871 Paris Commune and a future socialist deputy of Paris, was at the time the head of the National League of Physical Education and dedicated to free physical activity from competition. Of note, although Spalding was a capitalist, Grousset was very interested in baseball, even the professional game, for it provided an avenue of social elevation for working class players. Above all, he was impressed by the athletic stature of the American players on the tour.

He wasn’t the only one to be impressed. Journalist Adrien Marx, who covered the Parisian stage of the tournament and the match itself, wrote about the sport’s physical qualities in “Sub Jove”:  Chasses, pêches, excursions, voyages (1890) : 

“For what it’s worth, I would like baseball to be adopted in France. It has no other pitfall than the indents made by the bullet thrown and caught with an initial speed equal to that of the ingot bullets cast in Lebel rifles. But what is a black eye compared to the muscles that baseball gives to all?... I, out of curiosity, felt the forearm of a batsman.. and I declare that after this experience I would not suffer even an embrace by this forearm. When you touch it, it’s a cross between marble and iron... I pity the imprudent who will receive a blow from this assemblage of muscles and bones, and I advise him to make his will before this wonderful embrace."

In its March 5, 1889, edition, Le Temps invited the Parisian public “to view the beautiful muscular development that an outdoor game can give its consistent practitioners.”

The emphasis on baseball’s capacity to create strong, agile, speedy men wasn’t unusual at the time. The Third Republic, which succeeded the Second Empire immediately after the defeat at the hands of the Prussians in 1870 (Franco-Prussian War), wanted to build youths who would be good soldiers for the next war. It didn’t matter whether this was achieved through the English sporting ideal defended by de Coubertin or by the popular physical education advocated by Grousset for the desired result was the same: defense of the Fatherland. 

Through baseball, Americans were seen to lead the way in creating strong men useful to a nation in times of war. However, this game did not create popular support for baseball. Parisians weren’t terribly enthusiastic about a sport that resembled, more or less, other games with a bat and ball that existed in the country, like theca. Stil, there was enough interest to establish baseball sections in the illustrious Parisian high schools like Louis-Le-Grand or Jason-De-Sailly in the 1890s. Racing Club de France and Stade Français, two major Parisian multi-sport clubs, created baseball teams, too. 

In the early twentieth century, Minister of Public Instruction Georges Leygues wanted to follow the Americans and initiate French youth into the practice of sports to strengthen them. Americans Albert Hopkins and Henry Alexander were hired in July 1901 to introduce Parisians to the city’s American teams. But that wasn’t enough to entice Parisians to the game–nor did the support of a minister of the republic. 

Contemporary press accounts provide several hypothetical reasons why baseball didn’t develop:

1. Some thought it was too brutal a sport, surprising for a country that massively adopted football, which at times was very rigorous, and rugby.

2. Others argued that the public’s lack of interest in baseball was because it was an American sport, whereas there was a more natural attraction to English sports like football, rugby, and tennis, as illustrated by de Coubertin.

3. Moreover, some journalists thought that only Americans could understand and appreciate the game.

4. Lastly, baseball wasn’t really perceived as something ‘new’ but more similar to theca and campball.

Thus, in a strongly chauvinistic country, it seemed difficult to encourage to a French children’s game remade by foreigners, even if it was obvious that the American version was a real sport that could create exceptional athletes.

Baseball didn’t disappear but was mostly practiced by expatriate Americans and the rare French player. Nonetheless, French baseball in the years before 1914 found a new calling. In 1912, Franz O. Messerly created the Union Française de Base-Ball (today’s French Federation of Baseball and Softball, FFBS) and tried to attract Detroit Tigers pitcher Jean Duboc to France, even after the best season of his career. In 1913, the first baseball club was founded in France, Ranelagh BC, according to a study by the FFBS, even if there is no record of its existence in the available press accounts of the era.[3]

That same year, French media began to speak more regularly of baseball. A key catalyst was when Jim Thorpe lost the Olympic medals he won at Stockholm 1912 after it was discovered that he had played baseball professionally. This was a new occasion for French journalists to weigh baseball’s qualities as a means to create exceptional athletes, and also explained the superiority of U.S. athletes at the Sweden Olympics. 

For example, La Vie Sportive du Nord et du Pas de Calais described its qualities in its February 22, 1913 edition: 

“Baseball is a complete sport that develops the legs by running, skills by way of catching the ball, eye coordination to field it, and the spirit of discipline, tactics, and teamwork in giving it all for the team. And under these conditions, we shouldn’t be surprised how the Americans hold this game in such high regard.”

The National American Pastime was even covered in a front page of L’Auto, predecessor to the daily L’Équipe,[4] on April 4 the same year: “America's national sport is a lively team game, animated, easy to understand by spectators.” This same journalist included a number of descriptions on the game’s sports qualities but, surprisingly, presented it as a simple game to understand when baseball was often, since its beginnings to today, perceived by the French public as a game with complicated, often arbitrary rules. 

In addition to the Union Française de Base-Ball and the creation of Ranelagh BC, other initiatives and clubs were established in 1912 and 1913, independent of the American expatriates (who never stopped playing in Paris). For example, there was an explosion in the practice and mediatisation of baseball in 1913 thanks to support from well known people, notably AG Spalding, who declared “the next baseball country will be France!”

This enthusiasm was supposed to climax in February 1914 with an international tour of two major league teams, the Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. First, if the two teams played a match in Nice, the Parisian confrontation was canceled because of bad weather. Or more likely the teams canceled without advising the Parisians, who turned out in the rain for nothing. 

The First World War smashed the nascent dynamic of French baseball, but momentum revived with the arrival of American soldiers, who debarked with bats, balls, and gloves. In addition to military championships, exhibition matches on the Champ de Mars in Paris featured major league players who were on leave from the front lines, including Hawk Gowdy, Branch Rickey and Grover Cleveland Alexander. Organizations like the Knights of Columbus were also instrumental in spreading the game; in 1917, they sent future Hall of Famer Johnny Evers to France to teach baseball.[5]  

But perhaps the game’s biggest selling point was how U.S. soldiers, known as Doughboys, displayed their physical abilities during the war.[6] Their athletic excellence in the battlefields were attributed to practicing baseball, which persuaded General Vidal to decide in 1918 to include it in sports practiced by the French army. As La Presse reported on August 21, 1918 "the practice of baseball contributes to make men skillful in throwing grenades and, moreover, constitutes an athletic sports training that’s priceless for soldiers.

Despite these accolades, baseball did not become common practice for French soldiers. Similarly, the many matches played by American soldiers and the efforts of the Knights of Columbus to popularize the National Pastime in France met with little popular success. However, curiously, the newspaper L'Auto published the results and rankings of the MLB several times in 1919, suggesting that there was an audience for baseball.

This article would not be as complete without the historical work of Jean-Cristophe Tiné, former Secretary-General of the Fédération Française du Base-Ball et Soft-Ball, and author of the blog Une Histoire Oubliée d’un Sport Méconnu, a significant memorial to the first decades of baseball in France http://thenextbaseballcountrywillbefrance.blogspot.com/

Notes

[1] Pour certains, à travers les mangas et animes japonais, dont la France est friande, le baseball sera aussi connecté à la culture de l’archipel nippon.

[2] Tournée internationale organisée par AG Spalding, président des Chicago White Stockings, entre l’automne 1888 et le printemps 1889 qui passera par l’Australie, le Sri Lanka, l’Égypte, l’Italie, la France et les îles Britanniques.

[3] Le Ranelagh est l'un des clubs fondateurs de la FFBS. Dans son recensement des clubs affiliées depuis sa création, la FFBS signale que le club a été créé en 1913, ce qui en ferait le premier club non scolaire ou non rattaché à un club omnisports en France, le Racing Club de France ayant déjà une section baseball depuis plusieurs années. Néanmoins, cette affirmation reste sujette à caution car aucune mention n'est faite sur le Ranelagh dans la presse à cette époque-là, contrairement au Racing Club de France ou aux équipes américaines de Paris.

[4] L’Équipe, créée en 1946, est le seul quotidien sportif français. Il dispose actuellement d’un quotidien papier et numérique, d’une magazine hebdomadaire, l’Équipe Magazine, et d’une chaîne de télévision gratuite, La Chaîne L’Équipe

[5] Organisation catholique américaine ayant des activités caritatives ou de promotion de la foi.

[6] Surnom donné aux soldats américains lors de la WWI, à l’instar des soldats français appelés Poilus. On les appelait également Sammies.

Original En Français

Les Français connaissent le baseball ou, plutôt, connaissent son existence. A travers le cinéma ou les séries TV, le baseball fait partie de l’imaginaire sportif attaché à l’Amérique.[1] Pourtant, la plupart des gens en France ne connaissent pas le baseball au-delà de reconnaître gant, batte et balle à coutures rouges. La majorité des 67 millions de français ont un désintérêt total pour le baseball. Pire, le baseball souffre souvent d’une mauvaise image, celui d’un sport lent, ennuyeux et aux règles complexes que seuls les Américains seraient en capacité de comprendre et aimer, à l'identique des Anglais avec le cricket. Mais, comme le montre son histoire chaotique en France, le baseball a su, à quelques moments, éveiller curiosité et intérêt.

Dans cet article, je vous propose une brève histoire du baseball en France et le regard que les Français, ou, pour être plus précis, certains Français ont porté sur le National Pastime américain. Et, si l’on veut être plus précis, le regard médiatique français, seul source disponible sur les 130 années d’existence que compte le baseball en France.

Les premières traces de baseball font remonter sa pratique sur le sol français aux années 1880 entre Américains expatriés, particulièrement au sein des colonies d'artistes américains que l’on trouve en abondance en Bretagne, en Normandie, dans le Nord Pas de Calais et, bien entendu, à Paris. Dans leur livre Peintres Américains en Bretagne 1864-1914, David Sellin et Catherine Puget mentionnent que les artistes américains séjournant à Pont Aven et Concarneau s’affrontent au baseball en 1885. A partir de là, les expatriés Américains continueront, dès que leur nombre le permettra, la pratique du baseball, particulièrement à Paris dans les décennies suivantes grâce à la présence massive de citoyens des États-Unis dans la capitale française.

C’est le 8 mars 1889, à l’aube de la grande Exposition Universelle de Paris, que le premier match de baseball dit officiel est organisé en France. A l’ombre de la Tour Eiffel, dans le parc aérostatique quai de Billy, aujourd’hui avenue de New York, se produisent les deux équipes du Spalding’s World Tour, les Chicago White Stockings, futurs Cubs, et la sélection All America, composée d’autres joueurs des Ligues Majeures.[2] Pour l’occasion, AG Spalding, l’un des pères fondateurs du baseball professionnel, prophète du National Pastime, rencontre les hommes phares du sport français, le célèbre Pierre de Coubertin et l’ancien communard Paschal Grousset. Le premier, qui n’a pas encore fait revivre les Jeux Olympiques, est un fervent partisan du sport à l’anglaise, amateur et élitiste. Le second, journaliste, qui fut condamné au bagne pour avoir participé à la Commune de Paris en 1871 et futur député socialiste de Paris, est à la tête de la Ligue Nationale de l’Éducation Physique, œuvrant pour une activité physique libérée de la compétition. Pourtant, lors de sa rencontre avec le capitaliste Spalding, il se montre intéressé par ce baseball, certes professionnel, mais permettant l’élévation sociale de joueurs venant de classes populaires. Surtout, il est impressionné par la stature athlétique des joueurs américains de la tournée.

Il ne sera pas le seul. Le journaliste Adrien Marx, qui couvre l’étape parisienne de la tournée et le match, écrit dans "Sub Jove" : Chasses, pêches, excursions, voyages (1890) :

« Quoi qu'il en soit, je désirerais que le base-ball fut adopté en France. Il n'a d'autre écueil que les pochons déterminés par la balle lancée et repoussée avec une vitesse initiale égale à celle des lingots coulés dans les fusils Lebel. Mais qu'est-ce qu'un œil au beurre noir en regard des muscles que le base-ball octroie à tous ses desservants?... J'ai, par curiosité, tâté l'avant-bras d'un batsman... et je déclare qu'après cette expérience je ne voudrais pas subir même une caresse de cet avant-bras. Au point de vue de la résistance qu'il offre au toucher, il flotte entre le marbre et le fer... Je plains l'imprudent qui recevra un horion de cet assemblage de muscles et d'os, et je lui conseille de faire son testament avant cette formidable caresse ».

Dans son édition du 5 mars 1889, le journal Le Temps invite le public parisien « à constater le beau développement musculaire qu’un jeu de plein air, cultivé avec suite, donne à ses adeptes ». Cet engouement sur la capacité du baseball à créer des hommes forts, agiles et rapides ne doit rien au hasard. La France est sortie meurtrie de sa défaite contre la Prusse en 1870. La Troisième République, qui succède au Second Empire immédiatement après la défaite, veut bâtir une jeunesse qui fournira de bons soldats lors de la prochaine guerre. Que ce soit à travers l’idéal sportif anglais que défend Coubertin ou celui de l’ éducation physique populaire de Grousset, le résultat doit être le même à la fin : la défense de la Patrie. A travers le baseball, les Américains semblent montrer la voie pour créer des hommes forts utiles à une nation en temps de guerre.

Pourtant, cette démonstration de force ne va pas créer une dynamique populaire. Les Parisiens semblent peu emballés par ce sport qui ressemble plus ou moins aux jeux de batte et de balle qui existent déjà en France, comme la thèque. Il y en a tout de même suffisamment pour monter des sections de baseball dans la dernière décennie du XIXème siècle au sein d’illustres lycées parisiens comme Louis-Le-Grand ou Jason-De-Sailly. Puis, le Racing Club de France et le Stade Français, deux importants clubs omnisports, s'y essaieront également. Dans le XXème siècle naissant, le ministre de l'Instruction Publique lui-même, Georges Leygues, souhaite suivre la voie des Américains en initiant les jeunes français à la pratique de ce sport, toujours dans le but de fortifier la jeunesse du pays. Deux américains, Albert Hopkins et Henry Alexander sont engagés en juillet 1901 pour initier des Parisiens auprès des équipes américaines de la capitale. Cela ne suffira pas. Même le soutien d'un ministre de la République ne réussit pas à développer la pratique du baseball en France. 

Quelles en sont les raisons ? Des articles de presse de l'époque nous donnent quelques hypothèses. Certains pensent que le baseball est un sport trop brutal, ce qui peut paraître étonnant dans un pays qui adopte massivement le football, alors très rugueux, et le rugby. D'autres avancent que le baseball a contre lui d'être un sport américain, là où le public français semble plus attiré, comme De Coubertin, par le sport anglais, football, rugby et tennis en tête. Sans compter que certains journalistes estiment que c’est un jeu américain que seuls les Américains peuvent comprendre et donc apprécier. Enfin, le baseball n'est pas perçu réellement comme une nouveauté mais plutôt comme un sport similaire à la thèque et au jeu de la balle au camp. De ce fait, dans un pays fort chauvin, il semble difficile d'adhérer à un jeu d'enfants français revisité par des étrangers, même s'il est flagrant, pour les chroniqueurs de l'époque, que ce jeu est devenu, dans les mains américaines, une véritable science sportive pour créer des athlètes d'exception.

Le baseball ne disparaîtra pas du pays mais, dans cette période, il est surtout pratiqué par les expatriés américains et quelques rares joueurs français. Néanmoins, le baseball français, à l'approche de la Première Guerre Mondiale, trouve un nouveau souffle. En 1912, un certain Franz O. Messerly crée l’Union Française de Base-Ball. Il tentera même d’attirer Jean Dubuc, lanceur des Detroit Tigers, en France, alors qu’il vient de sortir la meilleure saison de sa carrière. En 1913, est créé le premier club de baseball, le Ranelagh BC, selon le recensement de la FFBS, même si on ne trouve pas, pour le moment, de traces de son existence dans la presse de l'époque au sein des archives disponibles.[3] 1913 est également l'année où la presse française se met à parler plus régulièrement de baseball, notamment après que Jim Thorpe ait perdu ses médailles olympiques, obtenues à Stockholm en 1912, quand on découvre qu’il a joué professionnellement au baseball. C’est une nouvelle fois l’occasion pour les journalistes français de louer les qualités du baseball comme créateur d’athlètes d’exception, expliquant ainsi la supériorité américaine lors des Jeux Olympiques de Stockholm. Voici comment La Vie Sportive du Nord et du Pas de Calais décrit ces qualités dans son édition du 22 février 1913 :

« Le base-ball est un sport complet qui développe les jambes par la course, l’adresse par la façon de rattraper la balle, le coup d’œil pour la recevoir et l’esprit de discipline, de tactique et d’union auquel doit obéir toute l’équipe. Et dans ces conditions, nous ne devons pas nous étonner que les Américains tiennent ce jeu en si haute estime ».

Le National Pastime américain est même en Une de L’Auto, le prédécesseur du quotidien L’Équipe,[4] le 4 avril de la même année : « le sport national des Américains est un jeu d’équipes vif, animé, facile à comprendre par les spectateurs ». La présentation du baseball par le journaliste rejoint nombre de description sur les qualités sportives du jeu mais étonne en le présentant comme un jeu simple à comprendre quand on sait que le baseball aura souvent, de son apparition à nos jours, l’image d’un sport aux règles compliquées et souvent abstraites pour le public français. 

En plus de l’Union Française de Base-Ball et de la création du Ranelagh BC, d’autres initiatives et créations de clubs ont lieu entre 1912 et 1913, sans compter la présence des expatriés américains qui ne cesse de jouer au baseball dans la capitale. L’année 1913 voit une explosion de la pratique et de la médiatisation de ce sport. De grandes personnalités soutiennent ce développement, notamment AG Spalding, le grand prophète du baseball, qui déclare en 1913 : « Le prochain pays du baseball sera la France ! ». Cet engouement réel doit trouver son climax dans la venue en février 1914 de la tournée internationale de deux équipes de la MLB, les Chicago White Sox et les New York Giants. Malheureusement, cela ne va pas se passer comme prévu. Premièrement, si les deux équipes jouent un match à Nice, la rencontre parisienne est elle annulée à cause du mauvais temps. Ou plutôt, les équipes l’annulent sans en avertir les Parisiens, qui se retrouvent à attendre sous la pluie pour rien. Puis vient la Première Guerre Mondiale qui va briser nette la dynamique naissante du baseball français.

La Grande Guerre va stopper l’élan nouveau du baseball en France mais, avec l’arrivée des soldats américains, débarquant avec battes, balles et gants, cet élan devrait naturellement reprendre. Surtout qu’en plus des championnats militaires, des matchs exhibition sont joués jusque sur le champ de Mars à Paris, que des joueurs des Ligues Majeures sont présents sur le front, comme Hawk Gowdy, Branch Rickey ou encore Grover Cleveland Alexander, et que certains sont envoyés pour apprendre le baseball aux français, tel le futur Hall of Famer Johnny Evers, par l’entremise de l’organisation The Knights of Columbus en 1917.[5] Qui plus est, les Doughboys étalent leurs capacités physiques à la guerre.[6] Comme pour les JO de 1912, cette excellence athlétique américaine est prêtée à la pratique du baseball. Il n’en faut pas plus pour que le général Vidal décide, en 1918, d’inclure le baseball dans les sports à pratiquer par l’armée française, comme l’indique le journal La Presse le 21 août 1918,

« la pratique du baseball contribue à rendre, en effet, l’homme habile au jet de grenade et, en outre, elle constitue un entraînement aux sports athlétiques qui est sans prix pour les soldats ».

Néanmoins, le baseball ne semble pas devenir une pratique sportive courante des militaires français. De la même manière, les nombreux matchs joués par les soldats nord-américains et les efforts des Knights de Columbus pour populariser le National Pastime en France ne rencontrent aucun succès populaire. Pourtant, curieusement, le journal L’Auto publie, à, plusieurs reprises en 1919, les résultats et classements de la MLB, laissant penser qu’il existe un public pour le baseball.

Remerciements : cet article n’aurait pas été aussi complet sans le travail d’historien mené par Jean-Christophe Tiné, ancien secrétaire générale de la FFBS, et auteur du blog Une Histoire Oubliée d’un Sport Méconnu, formidable travail mémoriel sur les premières décennies du baseball en France : http://thenextbaseballcountrywillbefrance.blogspot.com/

Gaétan Alibert is a writer on baseball and sports culture, author of Une histoire populaire du baseball (blacklephant editions), host of the Culture Baseball podcast, and contributor to HYPE Sports, The Strike Out and Ecrire Le Sport. He is also a member of Federal Memory commission of French Baseball Softball Federation. Follow him on Twitter @GaetanAlibert.

Title IX at 50: Beyond the United States

Today’s celebration of Title IX’s 50th anniversary focuses on how this legislation has benefitted generations around the United States–but it’s also had an impact on France, too. 

Title IX of the 1972 Education Act stipulates that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Those 37 words have had multidimensional impacts, including providing greater opportunities for women to pursue education while playing sports. Not just American women, but French women, too. 

Many of the Voices in the growing FranceAndUS archive were able to pursue their sports passions thanks to Title IX’s educational and sports benefits, which enabled them to be student-athletes in U.S. schools while pursuing academic studies. And some of them were inspired by or received recognition from legendary U.S. coaches, like University of Tennessee basketball’s Pat Summitt. 

“American college really reinforced my technically, basketball, and vision of the game.”

— Paoline Ekambi

For example, the first French woman to play Division 1 basketball, Paoline Ekambi, in 1984 did so through a bourse at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. As she noted, her motivation to excel at Marist, where she was part of the Big Five, was her desire to demonstrate that French women knew basketball and could play it well. Ekambi attributed her two seasons with the Red Foxes with helping her to become a better player, teammate, and on-court leader. These attributes she passed along to her younger Les Bleues teammates, some of whom had their own American dreams. 

 Some of this first wave included Katia Foucade-Hoard, the three-time University of Washington Huskies co-captain whose standout career (1991-95) remains inscribed in the school’s record book. 

“The thing I learned in the States is that anyone is as good as anyone else, even if on paper it shows that the other team is better. It doesn’t matter when the ball goes up in the air. It’s only at the end of the game that we’ll see who’s the best.”

— Katia Foucade-Hoard

Foucade-Hoard’s U.S. experience helped inform her service with the national team. At the June 1993 EuroBasket tournament, France fought their way to a silver medal, its first podium finish since 1970. Ekambi was part of that team, as was Yannick Souvré, who played at Fresno State for the 1989-90 season. 

Also on that team? Isabelle Fijalkowski, who spun her 1994-95 season with the University of Colorado Buffalos–one of the program’s best–into a springboard to the WNBA in 1997. At the March 1995 NCAA women’s basketball tournament, the team marched through the brackets but fell to Georgia, 79-82, in the Elite Eight, despite Fijalkowski’s valiant efforts (35 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists).

It’s important to note in this story the two-way knowledge, technical, and cultural exchange facilitated by this Title IX sports diplomacy. As Fijalkowski pointed out, her previous experience in France helped her Colorado teammates.

“They saw that I could help them as a team because there weren’t any other players with my profile…Thus they were delighted.” Isabelle Fijalkowski. 

The basketball story has many subsequent generational iterations, including Diandra Tchatchoung (University of Maryland) and Gabby Williams (University of Connecticut) whose transatlantic experiences have helped inform Les Bleues’ successes of the 2010s. And helped fuel the overall growing yet friendly France-USA basketball rivalry.

But it isn’t just at the D1 or national team levels that these Title IX sports diplomacy exchanges are ongoing; it’s there for French women playing D2 and D3 basketball, as well as for U.S. women who compete in the Ligue Féminine de Basketball (LFB), like Penn State alumna Nikki Greene (Angers) and UT alumna and WNBA’s Cassidie Burdick (ASVEL). 

There’s a growing intergenerational story of Title IX-inflected FranceAndUS sports diplomacy in soccer. When Title IX was passed in 1972, women’s soccer in France was in the midst of a slow-simmering revival; although one of the early foundational nations in the discipline–the French and English national team captains’ friendly cheek kiss at a 1920 match was the soccer world’s first viral moment–the game fell out of favor and was eventually banned under the Vichy regime. In the 1960s, there was a slow return of organized women’s clubs, and in 1970, the French Football Federation (FFF) recognized the women’s game. But those who played were long marked with numerous stereotypes, which even the current generation active on pitches still fight. 

“What I learned in the U.S. and my career in Boston was the team-building effect, how you play not just for yourself but how you’re part of a team with a spirit.”

— Laura Georges

That’s why it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the first French women came to the United States to play NCAA soccer. FFF Secretary-General Laura Georges was one of the first when she began a Hall of Fame career at Boston College in 2004.

Of note, since Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas launched and invested in a women’s team in 2004, the team’s rise and decade-long dominance of French and European competition has provided avenues for U.S. players, products of Title IX’s provisions for middle school, high school, and collegiate sports opportunities, to play professionally in France. OL alumna include Alex Morgan, Hope Solo, and Megan Rapinoe, while current squad member Catarina Macario had a standout career at Stanford University before journeying across the Atlantic Ocean. 

There are similar intergenerational FranceAndUS stories for other disciplines, such as alpine skiing. Take the Voice of U.S. National Ski Hall of Famer Donna Weinbrecht, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist who was one of the first generations to come of age under the new law. In 1981, she founded her high school’s first ski team, which enabled her to begin training more earnestly and laid the groundwork for her eventual Olympic and World Cup successes. 

These storylines are just the start, and more will be added to and highlighted by the archives in the years ahead.

American Football in France

Contributed By Dr. Russ Crawford

Often hidden from sight, American football has long served as a conduit between French and Americans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. For the first several decades, however, it was a game played in France by Americans. The sport was first exhibited in 1900 Paris and scrimmages held between the crews of visiting U.S. warships in French ports, but the Great War changed this.

The InterAllied Games in 1919. Image from Le Football: A History of American Football in France (used with permission by the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, MO via Russ Crawford).

The first American football games in France were played by soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in World War I. During the war, doughboys played for rest and relaxation, and to keep themselves safe from supposed temptations like....women, wine, and gambling.  Similarly, after the war, AEF soldiers waiting to be demobilized played football to keep busy.  These games included a division-level tournament that culminated in a championship game played at Stade Pershing in Paris as part of the Inter-Allied Games in 1919. Back in the United States, the war helped popularize football but it did not receive the same boost in France.

This changed in 1938, with concerns over renewed war building in France. Kurt Riess, a German writer working as a reporter for the French newspaper Paris Soir, had the idea that what France needed was American football.  He convinced his paper to organize an exhibition tour by two all-star teams led by Fordham University head coach Jim Crowley.  The two teams played six games and garnered significant press attention, at least in the buildup stage, and for the first game played in Paris.  

From Le Petit Parisien, December 1, 1938. Image from Le Football: A History of American Football in France (used with permission of the Bibliothéque Nationale de France via Russ Crawford).

When the United States joined the Second World War, American servicemen continued the games in French territory, beginning with the Arab Bowl in Oran Algeria in 1944. Various teams played in “Bowl” games in Paris, Dijon, Cherbourg, and Marseilles. A scheduled Champagne Bowl was cancelled by the Nazi’s final Ardennes Offensive. 

France also played an indirect role making football a better spectacle in the United States during WWII.  According to Clark Shaughnessy, then coach of the Stanford Indians, the German blitzkrieg that rolled through France in 1940 inspired him to revamp his offense into what would be popularized as the T Formation. That formation featured a great deal of misdirection and trickery to confuse the defense, as had the German invasion faking the Allied armies north into Belgium before striking through the Ardennes.

Between 1952 and 1966, the Fourth and Fifth Republics, as part of NATO, allowed the United States to build military bases on French soil.  By the late 1950s, teams from France began to dominate the U.S. Air Force Europe (USAFE) league. Despite the hundreds of games played on their soil, very few French citizens ever saw a football contest.  

In addition to games played by USAFE teams, American high schools attached to the various French bases also played football to give their students the same prep experience as their peers back home. Some of these prep teams also played internationally, facing teams from Germany, England, and Spain. 

A 1961 tour of southern France by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) Indians and the Laon Rangers included games in Toulouse and Perpignan.  The tour was conceived by Marcel LeClerc, who directed the Marseilles rugby club, and who paid all of the expenses for the tour. He wanted to popularize the American sport in the south where rugby was most popular, but the effort was unsuccessful.

In 1976, Bob Kap, an entrepreneur originally from Yugoslavia, who argued soccer-style kickers were better for the NFL, began his quest to popularize football in Europe.  His International Football League sponsored a tour of Europe by the Texas A&I Javelinas and the Henderson State Reddies, two top National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) football teams.  They played one game of their series in Paris and once again garnered significant press, but only for a few days.  

In 1977, Kapp convinced the semiprofessional Newton (IA) Nite Hawks and the Chicago Lions to play several games in Europe, including one in Paris and another in Lille. Though they drew decent crowds, and received some favorable press while in France, by the time the tour reached Austria things fell apart and team officials had to get a check cashed by the U.S. Embassy to pay for their hotel so they could leave for home.  

Into the 1980s, others attempted to bolster the sport’s popularity in Europe via the portal of France. Jim Foster, who created the Arena Football League, took the Detroit Drive and the Chicago Bruisers to Europe after the 1989 season, where the teams played exhibitions in London and Paris. Although the games netted a number of spectators, Foster credited the games in Europe with helping spread the popularity of his new league.  

The NFL also attempted to bring football to the continent with NFL Europe between 1991 and 2007, but they were unable to convince the French to take part.  Several French players saw action, but the effort ultimately failed to establish big-time professional American football anywhere in Europe.

Laurent Plegelatte (left) throwing a pass against Les Anges Bleus in the 1986 Casque d'Or FFFA championship game. Image from Le Football: A History of American Football in France (via Russ Crawford).

The tables turned in 1980, however, when American football played by the French took firmer root.  That year Laurent Plegelatte, a French physical education instructor in the greater Paris region, traveled to Colorado for a conference; while there, he watched practices and games at a local high school.  According to Plegelatte, when a coach ridiculed the idea that Frenchmen could play football, he decided to prove the critic wrong.  He then approached the owner of a sporting goods store and bought enough equipment to start a team. Within a few hours of his return to Paris, he held a practice and had formed the first all-French team – the Spartacus. Fittingly, they practiced on the grounds of Stade Pershing.

Plegelatte proved to be a visionary.  He required that his players learn the sport while playing for Spartacus, and then leave to form their own squad.  In this manner, within a few years there were several teams playing in and around the Paris area.

Spartacus, the Meteores, and the Anges Bleus (Blue Angels), along with others, pioneered the sport around Paris.  The Blue Angels, in particular, began to elevate the level of play by bringing in American players, and Canadian coach Jacques Dussault to help improve the level of play in the league.  Other teams, such as the Flash de La Courneuve, used the sport to build community in the economically blighted area where they played, and forged strong programs that continue today.  Despite facing the stigma of sometimes being called “Reagan Americans,” the players became fanatics in their devotion to the unusual sport.

Canal +, the French television network, began to televise American football games in the early 1980s, which accelerated team creation, and spread the game from the capital. The Argonautes of Aix-en-Provence was a power in the 1990s. The Spartiates of Amiens, and the Black Panthers of Thonon-les-Bains had championship runs in the 2000s. 

The Sparkles de Villeneuve St. Georges taken before their first game against the Spanish National Team. Image from Le Football: A History of American Football in France (photo courtesy of Rémy Issaly vis Russ Crawford).

In 2011, when Sarah Charbonneau created the Sparkles de Villaneuve St. George, women began to play as well. The Molosses d’Asniere-sur Seine, a successor team to the Sparkles, has won all of the Challenge Femin that the FFFA has held. Support from the FFFA has reportedly been grudging, and the Federation recently elevated flag football, instead of tackle, for women.

The most accomplished French player so far has been Richard Tardits, who remains the second leading sack producer in Georgia Bulldog football history.  Tardits, who went out for the Bulldogs on a whim, also played professionally in the NFL for the Phoenix Cardinals and New England Patriots from 1989 to 1992 before an injury cut short his career.  Jacques Accambray, a former FFFA president, played football and threw the hammer for the track team while attending Kent State University in the early 1970s. In recent years, more and more French players have found places on college teams in the United States and Canada. Purdue wide receiver Anthony Mahoungou played briefly for the Philadelphia Eagles, and most recently Jeffery M’ba signed to play with Auburn University. 

Today, more than 23,000 Frenchmen, and dozens of Frenchwomen, play the game on more than 225 teams.  The FFFA also sponsors junior teams, flag teams, and cheerleading competitions.  

Dr. Russ Crawford is a Professor of History at Ohio Northern University who runs the Women Playing American Football Oral History Project. The University of Nebraska Press published Crawford’s Le Football: A History of American Football in France in 2016. 

Sport Diplomacy: So what is it?

Contributed By Dr. J. Simon Rofe.

Definition: Sport Diplomacy is how we explain the intersection of the diplomatic realm with the sporting one and the subsequent formation of evolving networks.

It offers, under the premise of the three core characteristics of diplomacy: representation, negotiation, and communication, a conceptual understanding of sport that 1) provides the navigation skills for practitioners to connect with and learn from different parts of the sport diplomacy ecosystem; and 2) helps provide critical reflection for policy makers and practitioners, and scholars, to enhance their practice in these overlapping and conjoined spaces. (Rofe, 2019)

Nelson Mandela said in 2000, “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.” Anyone who has shared in sport’s capacity to heighten emotions with the scoring of a goal, the winning of a race or the triumph over an opponent will recognize the “power” that Mandela acknowledged. In essence Sport has an ability to communicate with vast number and variety of people–and hence facilitate diplomacy.

Why does Sport Diplomacy matter? Sport Diplomacy, or the sport diplomatique, explains the coming together of Representation, Communication and Negotiation–facets of Global Diplomacy–played out through sport as a feature of contemporary society of the past one hundred and fifty years that touches vast numbers of the world’s population either through participation or spectatorship.

 Sport has the power to shape the world through diplomatic transactions between not only nation states, but a raft of other actors on a global stage including international sporting bodies such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Special Olympics (SO); non-governmental organisations such as International Sporting Federations; media partners with national, regional and global interests; athletes themselves as potential sporting ‘diplomats’; and business interests that make any Sporting-Mega Event a multi-million pound enterprise. All of this is observed, dissected and recycled by a phalanx of commentators facilitated by twenty first century social media for a global audience. Sport replicates and exemplifies the prevalence of non-state actors and people-to-people [exchanges], which means in this latest iteration of ‘new diplomacy’, private citizens like athletes to play informal diplomatic roles.

The messages that sport carries are rarely singular; and that it can speak to so many different audiences is why it requires the careful decoding and analysis that we can provide.

Dr. J. Simon Rofe is the Global Diplomacy Programme Director and Reader in Diplomatic and International Studies at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS University of London. Co-Director of the Basketball Diplomacy in Africa Oral History Project, Dr. Rofe’s work has helped build out the sports diplomacy field, both its theory and practice.