Richard Kania is a coach, teacher, and former ballplayer in Czechia. He currently is Head Coach of the Czech Women's National Team, is on the coaching staff of the Prague Eagles in the Czech Baseball Extraliga, and serves on the staff of the Czech Blind Baseball National Team. He has been involved in Czech baseball and softball since 1986—including translating for visiting MLB executives, players, and baseball ambassadors. He has helped coach Ukrainian youth teams and the Israel National Team, including the squad that qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In 2025, he was inducted into the Czech Baseball Hall of Fame.
Position
Coach
Home
Czechia
Born behind the Iron Curtain, Richard Kania first encountered baseball in a West Virginia backyard. More than fifty years on, the Czech ballplayer and coach looks back at the tanks of 1968, the Chernobyl cloud of 1986, a pair of walk-off hits one month before the Velvet Revolution, and the decades of baseball and world history that followed.
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