Film Date: June 11, 2021

Home Team: Heidenheim Heideköpfe

Visiting Team: Stuttgart Red

League: Germany Bundesliga

Former/Current Baseball Jobs Overseas imports: Gary Owens, Logan Grigsby, RJ Hively, Aaron Dunsmore, Mitch Nilsson, Terrell Joyce, Fernando Escarra

 

Heidenheim Heideköpfe, based in Heidenheim an der Brenz, Baden-Württemberg, was established in 1992 as the baseball division of the Heidenheimer Sportbund (www.hsb1846.de), an organization that contains several clubs in different sports. The baseball team played its first season in 1993, was eventually promoted to the first division of the Baseball-Bundesliga end of 1999, and has remained there since.

Overall, the club has won league championships in 2009, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020. The team won the CEB-European Cup in 2019 and was runner-up in 2010. The year it finished second marked the first time a German team had won a medal in the history of the tournament.

In 2008, former major leaguer Mike Hartley became the team’s head coach and led it to a divisional title in 2008 and the first Men’s German Championship in 2009. Hartley became the first ex-Big Leaguer to play in the Bundesliga.

Heidenheim’s home is “HellensteinEnergie Ballpark”, a facility built in 2002 with 1,000 permanent grandstand seats and capacity for another 1,500 people in a grassy picnic area. The field is 98 meters (322 feet) down the lines and 120 meters (394 feet) to centerfield. The average per-game attendance is 400.

The team’s name means “heathland’s head,” a reference to Heidenheim’s coat of arms.