The new Heerenschürli will be ready in the next couple of days, so it’s a good time to reflect on the history of the ballpark.
It took eight years before the Zurich baseball clubs got a more or less suitable field to play baseball on. The city of Zurich found some space on the Heerenschürli sports complex to build a provisional baseball field. At the end of the 1980’s, four clubs with more than 10 teams where playing on that field: The Challengers, Barracudas, Lions and Coconuts. Soon, the limit was reached, and the trend continued to grow or least remain steady. By 2004, there were 6 Swiss Championship celebrations on the Heerenschürli, and 13 of all the 28 Swiss Champions titles went to Zurich (8x Challengers, 3x Lions, 2x Barracudas).
Combined with the age of the entire sports complex, the city of Zurich decided in 2002 to renovate the entire complex that would include a baseball field that comforts to international standards. Work on the new complex started in Summer 2008, and now finally, the field will be ready to be christened on April 17, with a classical derby between the Challengers and the Barracudas.
To read a more detailed story on the history of baseball in Zurich, check out Serge Künzler’s entry at the Zurich Federation’s website.

The Challengers travel to Rimini, Italy, where they will hold their spring camp over the Easter weekend. Both the Baseball and the Softball Team will play a couple of friendly games to get ready for the 2010 season. The C’s will open their season on April 17 and 18.

Newly-acquired Challengers head coach Brian Hipps arrived in Zurich on Thursday. In addition to his job as playing coach of the NLA-Team, Hipps will also serve as assistant coach for the NLB-Team, the Juniors and the Softball-Team. He will run his first practice on Friday and will make his debut in the Challengers uniform on Saturday, March 27 at Embrach and on Sunday, March 28 at Therwil.

Die Challengers starten ihre Serie von Vorbereitungsspielen am kommenden Wochenende. Das Baseball-Team wird am 27. und 28. März am traditionellen Frühlingsturnier in Embrach PZ Hard teilnehmen. Der Beginn macht am Samstag um 9.30 Uhr das Duell mit dem Stadtrivalen Zürich Barracudas, bevor die Challengers um 14.45 Uhr auf die Sissach Frogs treffen werden. Am Sonntag findet um 13.30 Uhr eine weitere Partie statt. weitere Infos.
Am Sonntag, 28. März werden die Challengers Split-Squad Games spielen. Die andere Hälfte des Team reist nach Therwil zu den Flyers. Beide Vereine gehören zu den Gründerorganisationen der Swiss Baseball and Softball Federation und begehen 2010 je ihr 30-jähriges Jubiläum. Aus diesem Anlass organisieren die Flyers einen Jubiläumsevent mit einem Baseballspiel um 12.00 Uhr und einem Softballspiel um 15.00 Uhr in Therwil Känelmatt.

A Swiss All Star Team traveled to Solingen, Germany where they played a doubleheader against the Solingen Alligators, who reached the semi-finals in the German Bundesliga in 2009, on Saturday, March 20. After winning Game 1 13-7 the team of former Challengers head coach Andy Fleischacker added a 14-0 in the second Game against the Swiss. Challengers players Thomas Blank, Thomas Burger and Thomas Landis were named into the Swiss Roster. Game 3 scheduled for Sunday, March 21 was canceled due to rain.