(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Espoo Expos captures 14th Finnish title
Nederlands
  RUSKEASUO-HELSINKI / LAHTI (Finland) -
Espoo Expos again has captured the Finnish baseball champion-title.
The most successful team in Finland won Game Three of the best-of-five Championship Final against Malmi Bullets on Saturday (September 3) to complete a 3-game sweep and capture its 14th consecutive title.
In the series, Espoo Expos recorded three convincing victories.
Team-captain Timo Liiri has been playing for Expos in all fourteen championship-seasons.
The Baseballin Suomi-sarja (Finnish Baseball Series) opened a week earlier with a double-header on Sunday, August 28 with a double-header in Ruskeasuo, which is a neighbourhood of Finnish capital Helsinski.
Espoo then won the opener with a 12-2 score and followed with a 13-4 victory in the second game.
Last Saturday, Espoo completed the sweep by winning 13-3 in Lahti at the new complex of Lahti Pirates, which was opened in August.
Both Malmi Bullets and Espoo Expos are coming from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
The Championship Series was first organized in 1981 and was then won by Helsinki Hawks.
The only time that a team from outside the Helsinki Metropolitan Area won the championship was in 1994 when Riihimäen Piraijat (Piranhas) from Riihimäki won the title.
In the regular season of the highest league, which consists of four teams, the Expos and Bullets finished in a tie for first place with a 12-6 record.
Helsinki Mets followed in third place with an 11-7 record, while Helsinki Puumat ended in fourth place with an 1-17 record.
In the season, the teams meet each other six times.
The Expos and Bullets each won three of their six head-to-head games.
Espoo Expos had three foreign players on its roster this season, Americans John Evano (outfield/pitcher) and Byron Humphrey (infield/pitcher) and Hungarian infielder Gabor Munkacsi.
On the roster of Helsinki Bullets were seven foreign players this season.
Four of them came from Cuba: Andres Mena (infield/pitcher), José Mesa (catcher/pitcher), Adunais Perez (outfield) and Silvio Quevedo (outfield/infield).
Two of the players came from the USA, being Shawn Buckelew (infield/pitcher) and Horacio Ortega (outfield).
The seventh foreign player on the Bullets-roster was Dominican Danis Santos (infield).
Game One
Espoo Expos won the opener 12-2.
The team collected 16 basehits, including three by second baseman Olli Tolppanen and first baseman Gabor Munkacsi.
Tolppanen batted in three runs, Munkacsi four.
Andres Mena was 3-for-3 for the Bullets, which were all doubles and batted in two runs.
Timo Liiri went the distance for Expos and struckout five batters, while giving up six hits.
Game Two
In the second game, Expos won 13-4.
This time, the team collected 13 basehits.
Leftfielder Dan Haataja was 2-for-4 and batted in four runs, while Olli Tolppanen scored three runs.
Second baseman Sebastian Nymark scored four runs for the Expos.
José Mesa was 3-for-5 for Bullets, but was ejected in the ninth inning.
In the fifth inning, two other players were ejected.
Ville-Herman Saarman, starting pitcher of Expos, then hit Dominican Danis Santos with a pitch.
That led to something which was enough for the umpires to eject both.
Game Three
In the third game, Expos again won big and ended the game for the second time with a 7-inning, mercy-rule victory.
Expos collected eleven basehits, including three by Dan Haataja.
Designated hitter Ville-Heman Saarman was 2-for-4 with a homerun, scored three runs and also batted in three.
Tapio Parkkinen also batted in three runs, while Byron Humphrey scored three runs.
Winning pitcher Marko Nygård threw a complete game for Expos and gave up only five basehits.
(September 6)
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Game One best-of-five Championship Series Finland.