Annika and Emilia Linna are baseball players from Oulu, whose team is 500 kilometers away. During the winter season, the team gathers every couple of weeks, for the summer the women move to Pori.
A baseball player Emilia Linna walks twenty meters from his home across the yard to the neighbor’s house and rings the doorbell. You will be met in the hall Emilia Eastern Lighta Pori Nest Bears player himself. Annika Linna shouts a greeting from the kitchen.
Emilia is already playing her sixth season in Pesäkarhui. Annika still played last season in her parent club in Kempeleen Kiri. Contacting Pori at the end of the season was a pleasant surprise.
– I missed new challenges and wanted to develop. The opportunity to transfer to a top organization came along well, says Annika Linna.
Despite the great opportunity, the transfer was also considered with devotion with my sister. Linnoja thought about how being close together both in training and as a family would affect their relationship.
– We agreed that we fit in the same team, but not in the same house. That would have been too much, the women laugh.
A housing association occupied by athletes
Living together was a natural topic of conversation, because even though Emilia has also played in Pesäkarhui since 2018, like migratory birds, she will move elsewhere for the winter – although instead of the south, back to her home region of Oulu in the north.
However, it was easy to find another roommate for both of them, because there are other traveling players in Pesäkarhui. The baseball stadium is only a kilometer from the summer camp, and many other athletes live in the Musa apartment complex, such as Musan Salama’s soccer players.
– I expected that it would have taken more time to adapt to the new environment. The girl from the north has settled in Pori surprisingly quickly, says Annika Linna.
Because of the nice neighbors, there has been no need to feel lonely in a foreign place. If you want, you can be alone in your own room, but there are always friends for leisure activities.
Even though Annika enjoys herself in the city, she also heads north after the season. Psychology studies at the University of Oulu as well as friends and family await there.
Self-directed and disciplined travel players
There are a total of eight traveling players in the Nest Bears, so the team’s operations are structured in a different way than other teams during the winter season.
From the game director’s point of view, working together outside of practice is of paramount importance in terms of team building.
– In winter, the weekend camps last from Thursday to Sunday and are really intense, Pesäkarhuje’s game director Jarkko Pokela tells.
Emilia Linna is a morning person by heart and blood. Team activities are usually concentrated in the evenings, so the independent training that is part of the role of a traveling player suits him perfectly.
In her opinion, the team dynamic changes easily with the change of just one player, but in Emilia’s opinion, being part of the team remotely does not harm the team spirit.
– Actually, the team grows together in a completely different way, when we often spend long weekends together in the winter. This team has a bit of the same vibe as the 2021 championship team, Emilia paints.
On average, the team has weekend camps twice a month in November-April. The journey is smooth on the train, even though there is no direct train connection between Oulu and Pori. The round trip therefore takes more than the length of a working day during the camp weekend, i.e. twelve to thirteen hours.
Annika Linna has received a lot of support and advice for the everyday life of a traveling player from her sister. Itävalo, based in Kankanpaälä, will also be a travel company from Oulu.
Days in Pori are filled with work in addition to training and game trips. Emilia is already working for the fifth summer at the child welfare institution, and Annika has a few hundred meters commute to nearby Prisma.
The baseball playoffs begin on Wednesday night. Päsäkarhut will face Fera in the quarterfinals.