Dave Burns and Mike Burke looked at Austrian pro baseball in 1999 as a way to play and teach the game while seeing the country.
Burke soon returned back to Vernon. Burns married, had children and is still loving the game in a foreign place.
After re-building for a few years, the Attnang Athletics have reached the Austrian Baseball League playoffs for the first time since 2011 by winning the pennant.
The A’s swept the offensive juggernaut Weiner Neustadt Diving Ducks 14-0 and 7-4 in the championship series openers last weekend. Games are on the club’s Youtube Channel.
“The last few years have been miserable and nothing to report back on,” said Burns, a towering first sacker/playing coach. “We were a very young club getting our asses handed to us. I hung on playing knowing that we will have a good team in a few years. In 2013 we were 4-16, 2014 1-19, last year 8-12. This year we went 12-8 which was good enough for first place in a very competitive league which saw only two games separating first to fifth.”
Burns returned to Vernon briefly and has lived in Austria permanently since 2004. he brought over buddy Jonny Kashuba in 2005 and 2006. Kashuba returned with his now Austrian wife in 2010, when the A’s won their second championship. Kashuba returned to Vernon with his wife and two daughters in 2013.
The Athletics faced the fourth-seeded Stock-City Cubs in the semifinals, losing the first two games at home. On the road for games three through five, the A’s fell behind 3-0 after losing Game 3 before losing on a diving catch by the Cubs centerfielder with the bases loaded in the ninth down 4-2.
Attnang appeared in serious trouble as they were up against the Cubs’ American import pitcher and top ace in the league, Dustin Hamilton.
”Our plate approach to go deep into counts paid off as a tired Hamilton came out after eight innings with the Cubs up 3-2 after throwing over 150 pitches.”
Against the Cubs reliever, the A’s managed to load the bases and with two out, and the count 0-2 on their eighth-hole batter who managed to foul off a number of pitches and work his way to a walk and tie the game 3-3.
The next batter then walked to give the A’s a 4-3 lead before their half of the inning came to an end. The A’s secured the win in the bottom of the ninth behind a Burns’ pick in the dirt off a barehand-Tulo style one-hop. off-balance running throw from A’s American import shortstop David Brandt.
In another epic battle in game 5 the next day, the A’s held a narrow 3-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning when the A’s American-Austrian import starting pitcher Ryan Rupp struck out the Cubs clean up Cuban hitter with the bases loaded in what was a TSN turning point in the series.
In the next half inning, Brandt hit a no-doubt two-out grand slam to give the A’s some breathing room for the first time in the series, leading 8-3. The A’s then tacked on five more runs to win 13-3. Burns went 4-for-4 with four RBI.
Games 6 and 7 were back in Attnang on a sunny Saturday doubleheader the following weekend, facing Hamilton.
The A’s jumped out to an early 1-0 lead behind a Brandt double, a sacrifice and scoring on a pass ball. In the third, Brandt smacked a two-out single to cash in two runners.
The A’s third American import Steven Johnson had his best pitching performance of the season as he tossed a complete-game shutout to even the series 3-3.
In Game 7, Brandt stayed hot by leading off with a double and then scoring on a Johnson triple to take the early lead. A Burns’ single cashed in Johnson to make it a quick 2-0 score. The A’s hit through the order, bringing Brandt up again to smack a three-run blast to extend their lead to 8-0.
Rupp then threw a jem as the A’s offence continued to add to the lead while cruising to a 15-2 win to complete the comeback, sending them to the Austrian Baseball League finals.