Introductory baseball for the blind course added to WBSC Academy

An introductory course designed to acquaint national governing bodies with baseball for the blind has been added to the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Academy.

The WBSC Academy - the organisation's new e-learning platform - began offering online course on November 2.

The baseball for the blind course course is available in English and Spanish. 

It has been designed by the Italian Baseball Association for the Blind (AIBxC), and is intended to allow federations to discover and develop the discipline.

The AIBxC is one of the world's leading baseball for the blind organisations and the top Italian league features 11 teams.

The Mole's Cup - an international baseball tournament for visually-impaired players - was won by Italy in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic meant the 2020 edition could not be staged. 

Italy, France and Germany originally contested the Mole's Cup, but Cuba, the United States and the United Kingdom were added to the 2019 tournament and it is hoped that Pakistan, Panama and Argentina will compete in the next edition.

Plans are afoot for the AIBxC to add further courses to the e-learning platform.

Speaking when the WBSC Academy was launched, WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari pointed out that it was "part of our goal to reduce our carbon footprint across all of our activities", as well as a way of ensuring education could continue despite the global health crisis.