“Wrecked German Baseball”
Kultklub allows the 17-year-old super talent to dream
8 April 2022, at 18:11
Baseball is a niche sport in Germany. However, one made it to the American MLB with Max Kepler. And a young super talent could follow him: Tim Fischer. For a 17-year-old boy, the first step of his big dream has come true.
Tim Fischer “still can’t put it into words” what he was thinking when the door to a big career suddenly opened. It’s also overwhelming. He, Tim Fischer, 17 years old, pitcher (pitcher) of the second team of Regensburg “Legionaries”, signed a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers of the professional baseball league MLB a little over a month ago. You may be speechless at times.
The Dodgers are a cult club, they last won the World Series in 2020. They look around the world for players who promise them success, and they apparently think Fischer is the promise that will eventually come true. “They announced very early on that they wanted him,” says Martin Brunner, who runs the baseball academy he built in Regensburg. He also produced Max Kepler, a shortstop for the Minnesota Twins.
“It’s time for him to leave Germany”
The Dodgers had had Fischer for a few years and what they saw and saw captured their imaginations. Born in Regensburg, playing baseball since the age of four, he is now over 1.90 meters tall and weighs 90 kilograms, and his throws already reach 92 miles per hour (approx. 148 kilometers per hour) and – very attractive and rare: He can throw the ball four ways.
By MLB standards, Fischer, who began training as a carpenter after school, is a model athlete with tremendous potential — even though he’s only played for the Legionnaires’ second team so far. “He can win even if he has a bad day,” Brunner says, which means, “It’s time for him to leave Germany. He’s outgrown German baseball now.”
When the visa arrives these days, Fischer will first fly to the Dodgers’ academy in the Dominican Republic. If all goes well, he could work himself into the club’s spring training next spring, at least within sight of superstars like Clayton Kershaw. Fischer says what is said in such a case: “You always have an idea of where you want to be. But I like to go step by step.”
The journey through the multi-level farm should, of course, end in the MLB – the right-handed Fischer would be the first German pitcher to get there. The path is cruel, the choice merciless. But Brunner says, “Tim’s got good head and body. If the Dodgers didn’t see in him that he could do that, they wouldn’t have signed him.”