When he plays in the field, the farthest trip a shortstop makes is into short right field to act as a relay man and cut down a baserunner. Now that he has finished his college career, Ed Kahovec is going a little farther away than the outfield grass on Towers Field.
Kahovec has just signed a contract to play baseball in Germany. He will play for Erbach Grasshoppers. Erbach is a small town, located abut one hour south of Frankfurt.
Baseball in Germany has a similar structure to soccer. There are three divisions: 1st Bundesliga, 2nd Bundesliga, and Regionaliga (third league). If a team finishes in first place in its league, it is promoted to the higher division. If it finishes last, it is relegated to the lower division.
Promotion is not mandatory, though. “Last year, Erbach was in the Regionaliga and finished second,” Kahovec said. “The first place club, Bad Homburg, already had a team in the 2nd Bundesliga, so the Grasshoppers were next in line to move up and they jumped at the opportunity. A team can decide if it wants to move up or not.”
Over winter break, Kahovec sent out roughly 150 emails to general managers throughout Europe. He got positive feedback from 15-20 of them and 'serious inquiries' from five.
He wanted to play in Italy. It is part of his heritage (on his mother's side) and has the most competitive baseball in Europe. Most of the interest in him came from Italian teams. When the teams discovered his Italian bloodlines were on his mother's side and not his father's side, he was told he couldn't receive citizenship, so he couldn't play there.
Rochester head coach Joe Reina talked to teams in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. Reina received an email from Kyle Murphy, a Union graduate who played for the Grasshoppers last year. Murphy asked if there were any Rochester players interested in playing. Reina forwarded the email to Kahovec. A quick contact with Murphy put Kahovec in touch with the Grasshoppers general manager, Stefan Hoffman.
“I believe each team in Germany is allowed to have two international players (non-German) per team, but the Grasshoppers only carry one,” Kahovec said. “So, each year, they bring in a player to play/coach for the first team and coach the second team, the youth team, and the softball team.” Each baseball club is made up of the two to three baseball teams in respective leagues, a youth team, and a softball team.
Kahovec does not speak German. Hoffman told him all the players speak English – which pertains to most people under the age of 30.
He will leave on May 29 and return after the season ends in October. The Grasshoppers club was winless through its first six games.
When he arrives on European shores, he will do it with a good baseball resume. Kahovec just completed his finest season in a Rochester uniform. He hit .372 (54 of 145) and scored 40 runs. He had 10 doubles, a team-high six home runs, and drove in 25 runs. His slugging percentage was .566 and his on-base percentage was .445. He was successful on nine of 12 stolen base opportunities.
For his career, he hit .338 and scored 93 runs. He had 25 doubles, one triple, eight home runs, and 66 RBIs. He played sparingly as a freshman (nine games). His average rose each year from sophomore through senior year: .318 as a soph, .331 as a junior, .372 as a senior. He moved to shortstop after playing in the outfield as a sophomore.
In 2006, Kahovec was named Second Team All-Liberty League as an outfielder. In 2007, he was named First Team All-University Athletic Association and All-Liberty League as a shortstop. This year, he repeated as a First Team All-UAA shortstop and earned Second Team All-Liberty League honors. He was just named Third Team All-New York Region by the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Rochester finished 28-13. The Yellowjackets won the Liberty League regular season championship with an 18-4 record.
