Why are Americans going wild for Finland’s favourite summer pastime pesäpallo?

Why are Americans going wild for Finland’s favourite summer pastime pesäpallo?

There's a familiar thwack of bat against ball, there’s pitchers and catchers, cheers from spectators and a mad sprint around the bases: but this is not baseball or softball, it's their unique Finnish cousin pesäpallo.

This spring the sport, which is hugely popular around the country, has seen a surprising surge in pre-season attention on social media coming from new fans in the United States who stumbled upon a few viral videos but then stayed to learn more.

Pesäpallo was introduced to Finland in the 1920s and was even a featured event at the 1952 Summer Olympic Games in Helsinki.

It shares an obvious DNA with American baseball, but with several big differences: the balls are pitched vertically in front of the batter; the managers communicate complicated gameplay strategies by flashing a series of coloured cards; and the ball is always in play - meaning the outfielders might run into a car park, a forest or even hurl themselves into a river to retrieve the ball.

“Finland has a tradition of different kinds of bat and ball games but they have been more like children’s games in backyards and schoolyards,” explains Antti Haapasalo, the social media manager for Superpesis, Finland’s semi-pro pesäpallo league.

“What [pesäpallo creator] Lauri Pihkala brought from baseball was a set of professional rules and made those old Finnish ball and bat games a real sport,” he tells Finland Insider.

It’s Haapasalo’s viral videos which have brought in tens of thousands of new followers, and more than 47 million views on social media channels this year alone: and nobody is more surprised than the Tampere-based social media wizard.

“I haven’t experienced in my working career this kind of flow of people and new followers coming to Superpesis before. I made viral videos before, but now for some reason maybe we have accumulated enough followers because when the videos went viral they really exploded!” 

There’s been so much traffic to the Superpesis social media channels that Haapasalo has started posting more content in English as well.

Finnish school children often learn to play pesäpallo in class and bright prospects can play at junior club level, although it's typically more popular outside the Helsinki capital city region. 

"Pesäpallo is a big part of Finnish sporting culture in all parts of Finland and its widely played by men and women," explains Christian Soininvaara, a sports reporter at the MTV3 television channel. 

"Men's Superpesis has been dominated over the last 30 years by a club based in Sotkamo called Jymy, and they've won 20 league titles overall, and are the reigning champions as well," he says. 

"Women’s Superpesis is maybe the most popular team sport in Finland by attendance numbers, and many teams get big, sold-out crowds at their ballparks which is something unfortunately we don't often see in other women's sports leagues." 

Aino-Kaisa Mantere plays in the top-flight Superpesis, and at 29 she's one of the oldest women in the league. 

"I started when I was six years old growing up in Ilmajoki, and both my big brothers played so it was a thing in our family and I think most players start somewhere around age six to ten," she tells Finland Insider. 

Mantere played for Jyväskylä’s Kirittäret while she studied at university, then a season for Pori Pesäkarhut, and now plays for Maila-Jussit in Seinäjoki. 

"In baseball or softball there's hitting and throwing" - Mantere also plays on the Finnish softball national team, hoping to make it to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 - "but in pesäpallo I think we have more tactics like where I put my feet, how I stand, it all means something." 

"I love the strategy and watching videos, every day I have a chance to learn something new and try something new," she says. 

Aino-Kaisa has also been pleasantly surprised by all the recent social media attention on pesäpallo from the USA. 

"I don't know if it's weird, but every time if you ask a Finnish person we are always happy when someone notices us and that's how I feel when American people are noticing us. It's just fun that for some reason our sport has been discovered."

"I like to read the comment in Instagram or TikTok when people say 'it's like baseball from Wish'" she laughs. 

Superpesis social media manager Antti Haapasalo reckons that Finns themselves are falling back in love with pesäpallo, something he attributes to being nostalgic for the past, and a simpler way of life. 

"These small towns and counties in rural areas, they have always been more fond of pesäpallo even though Helsinki used to be the hub of the sport." 

Between men's and women's leagues, the Finnish capital has won more national titles than any other city but the last time was back in the 1970s, as other regional teams have dominated in recent decades. 

"Now in Finland people started to appreciate pesäpallo and the climate for it has something to do maybe with how things are going now in the world. You remember going to the summer cottage or your grandparent's place in a small town and it brings up good and fond childhood memories," says Haapasalo. 

Seinäjoki player Aino-Kaisa Mantere agrees that there's something particularly appealing about pesäpallo which seems to connect with spectators no matter where they are in the world. 

"During a game we show our emotions, and there is so much action in such a short period of time that as a spectator you can live every moment with the players."