How one man -- and a mascot named Manny -- is turning Germans into baseball fans

It was a rainy September day in Hoofddorp, Netherlands during the 2018 Super Six baseball tournament when Sascha Hermann got his big idea. Hermann was cheering for the German National Team from his seat when he looked around and was disappointed by what he saw. Though the city was just a short trip from Germany, he was one of the few fans rooting for the country. Unlike in soccer, where the national team is followed with frenzied devotion, the baseball team had seemingly no one pulling behind them.

In that moment, Hermann made up his mind: He would start a German baseball fan club.

"I was sitting alone there and I was like, that sucks," Hermann told me with a laugh while attending the European Baseball Championship in the Czech Republic this past fall where Germany finished fourth -- nearly knocking off the heavily-favored Netherlands for a bronze medal in a wild extra innings affair.

"Where are the fans? Where are the people?" Hermann asked himself. "It's not far away from the border. It's a beautiful city on the sea with a perfect, brand new stadium -- where are the fans, you know? Then I realized nobody knows about it. There was no promotion. There was no one organizing -- which Germans love. If you organize or give them a path, they go through it!"

Fanclub Baseball Deutschland was born.

Hermann first fell in love with baseball during Germany's 1990s sporting boom -- when teams "popped up like like mushrooms," Hermann noted -- lining up for the Paderborn Untouchables' third team.

"I had a normal career as a player -- never played in the first or second league -- but as a pitcher I was throwing gas," Hermann joked. "Like 60-plus [mph] gas, high 60's for 25 years."

Combining that passion with the same skills he relied on in his day job as a furniture marketer, Hermann began reaching out to members of Germany's baseball community. He quickly established social media accounts for the fan club, pumping money into the venture early on to purchase ads so he could break through the algorithm.

After seeing remarkable growth and finding German baseball fans both young and old, Hermann took his next step. It's the same thing that connects all fans across the globe: Free merch.

"First of all, we created a fan card, something you can have in your [wallet]," Hermann said. "You are a member now and it's free. You get automatic membership with the fan club for life. You just have to come to the stadium for one game every five years. We didn't want to make it stressful."

The welcome packages grew, including special baseball cards and photos of national team players. Stickers, flyers and the assorted baseball ephemera that fans love to obsess over and keep tacked to a bulletin board at home were stuffed into envelopes and passed out in the bleachers.

He noticed that there was no place for fans to purchase jerseys -- the fashion choice for many diehard fans -- so he found someone who helped put up 10,000 Euros to purchase caps and jerseys and have them ready to be shipped to fans.

"The best moment was when we got the jerseys because for 60 years of German baseball, you were never able to buy a jersey or a hat," Hermann said.

He even created the first bobblehead in European baseball when his Paderborn Untouchables gave away 200 Oliver "Bürgermeister" Neisemeier figurines last year.

Of course, they also ran into some unexpected issues.

"We bought them in China from where the Washington Nationals get theirs, but we got a really big one by mistake because we didn't have the experience," Hermann said. "We got a really big one and we gave it to the fans. That game was sold out because of the fan's response to it."

The club's work has helped engage both longtime fans and find new ones, like Cedric Puerkhardt, who was in attendance at this fall's Euros. He grew up having a vague idea of the existence of baseball, but spent his time playing games that are historically more popular in the country like soccer.

It was about a year ago when Puerkhardt, now 26, found himself curious about the game and so reached out to Hermann. He said that he didn't know the rules and had never really played.

"No worries," Hermann told him. "Come over and we'll show you the game. It's easy to learn."

"It was love at first catch," Puerkhardt said.

When he registered his first hit, that changed everything.

"I had shaky legs when I was standing at home plate and facing a pitcher in real life," Puerkhardt recalled. "I swung a bit late and hit an opposite-field double. I was standing on second base and I looked into the dugout and everybody was cheering and yelling. I get goosebumps even thinking about it."

Now, Puerkhardt travels around the globe, helping Hermann and the fan club wherever they may be.

While the fan club is excited to bring in supporters of any age, it was Hermann's next decision that may be the most impactful of all: He created a mascot -- the perfect thing to appeal to young children, who are just learning about the game. While the beloved sight of a fuzzy, oversized creature caterwauling atop dugouts may be a common sight in America, it's hardly the norm for baseball teams across Europe (though there were three mascots that looked like cousins of Mr. Met at the Euros this fall.)

After eschewing the eagle that is so common for other German national teams, Hermann settled on creating Manny the Fox, "as it's friendly, smart, but a little bit of a bandit. It's not bad for a mascot."

The response was overwhelmingly positive.

Dressed in a traditional Oktoberfest outfit this fall, young children would cheer and race for a photo or high five. It's the same reaction across the globe, too: Wherever Manny goes, the fans follow, getting besieged with hugs in Mexico and kisses when attending games in Italy.

"It's tougher for German kids because there's so much [focus on] soccer," Puerkhardt said. "They need more [exposure] to the sport. I see it in myself, how much I enjoy it and how much fun it is. I hope more kids in Germany can feel the same."

This year, the German national team will have a training camp in Tenerife, play at Prague Baseball Week in July, host an exhibition series in August and go to a training camp in Spain in October. The Baseball Bundesliga will be in action throughout the country, too -- even though Mannheim will be without a team in the top level for the first time in modern history as the Tornados were relegated last year.

That means there will be plenty of chances for fans -- and Manny -- to come out and make some noise.

"I hope we can meet in the stadiums all over the world," Hermann said, "and we can have a lot of fun together."