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 Long before Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth were born, Russians would divide into teams of five to ten players on a natural field. One player would throw a ball toward a member of the other side, who would try to hit it with a lapta stick and then run to the opposite side and back before the thrower's team could retrieve the ball and hit him with it. "Games resembling lapta, such as cricket and baseball, also exist in a number of foreign countries," notes an old Soviet encyclopedia. Lapta has never gathered much of a following in modern times, maybe because no one ever introduced Cracker Jack or hot dogs to the enterprise. But American-style baseball began to attract interest here in the 1980s, during the last years of the Soviet Union, as the game was on its way to becoming a medal sport at the Olympic Games. Peter Baker Baltimore Sun 10/18/03
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