Our preparation for the season usually starts in winter with practice twice a week: Wednesdays with pitchers and catchers and Saturdays with the whole team. During off-season, we can't use the field because it's too cold outside. So, we need a gym for practice, which is hard to find. Mostly because they are never big enough, but also because the city is hesitant about allowing baseball or softball practice in their gym (they think we destroy everything...). But we try to make the best of it. Our physiotherapist works with us in strength and conditioning and we always figure out how to make practice as much fun as possible, sometimes in really small gyms. In summer we practice 2 to 3 times a week on our softball field and the batting cage: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

In terms of sponsoring, softball isn't very well supported in Germany. We do have some sponsors, but we still have to pay a lot ourselves, like gas for away games, shirts, personal softball equipment, or the European Cup. It's a problem in Germany, because our sport is not very popular. That's why we also have to pay a little fee for every national team practice or tournament we play, to make sure  we can stay in a hotel or youth hostel and have a gym to practice in.

by Nina Wunn

Read the complete blog post at Eva Voortman blog


-Helena Novotna-