Ten days, three countries, one bus, and a lot of baseball. Here's everything happening on the road for Boys of Summer, July 21–31, 2026.
From a welcome BBQ at Ducksfield to a beach afternoon on the Tuscan coast, here's the complete day-by-day plan.
The tour opens with a light joint practice alongside the Diving Ducks at Ducksfield — easy reps, good energy, and a chance to reset the legs after travel. The real celebration comes after: a welcome BBQ with our hosts to kick the trip off right before the Slovakia series begins the next evening.
Three games against the Slovak National Team at Ducksfield — a best-of-three home stand to open the international slate.
Baseball is still a developing sport in Slovakia compared to its neighbors, but the federation has been steadily building a program through European qualifiers and youth development. In the WBSC Men's World Rankings, Slovakia has sat around 42nd in the world (per the most recently published position, November 2024) — a mid-pack standing among Europe's baseball nations, well behind regional powers like the Czech Republic (15th) or Netherlands (10th), but ahead of many countries still building programs from scratch. The national team's most recent official action came in the European Baseball Championship Qualifier, where a full roster represented the country.
Source: WBSC World Rankings via Wikipedia, position dated Nov 27, 2024 — most recent published figure for Slovakia.
Born December 30, 2000 in Bratislava, Slovakia, Adam Macko moved with his family first to Ireland while awaiting a Canadian visa, then to Alberta, Canada, where he grew up playing baseball at the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball. The Seattle Mariners drafted him in the 7th round of the 2019 MLB Draft; Toronto acquired him by trade in November 2022.
On May 18, 2026, Macko made history by becoming the first Slovak-born player to appear in a Major League Baseball game — and made an immediate mark, retiring all three New York Yankees hitters he faced in his debut. He's a fresh reminder that this tour's opponents come from federations still writing their first chapters in the sport.
A home-and-away set against Croatia's U23 National Team, first in the capital and then in Karlovac — the town widely considered the heart of Croatian baseball.
Croatia has quietly become one of Europe's most improved baseball nations. The senior national team currently sits 32nd in the WBSC world rankings (as of late March 2026), climbing several spots over the past year. Their program peaked with a 7th-place finish at the 2021 European Championship — the best result in the federation's history — built on a golden generation that also won the B-Level European Championship in Karlovac back in 2015, fittingly one of the very cities Boys of Summer will visit on this tour.
Karlovac in particular has produced an outsized share of Croatia's talent, largely through the Olimpija club, whose back-to-back domestic titles have made it the country's premier baseball address.
Source: WBSC World Rankings / Croatia national baseball team overview via Wikipedia, dated March 26, 2026.
A product of Karlovac's Olimpija club, Horvatić was discovered at scouting camps in Holland and Italy and signed with the Tampa Bay Rays in December 2015 at age 18 — becoming the first Croatian-developed player to sign an MLB contract. As he put it at the time, since the year 2000 only around 60 European-developed players had signed MLB deals, making his path a genuine rarity.
Second-generation Croatian-American, Andrew Šušac spent six seasons in the majors and won a World Series ring with the San Francisco Giants in 2014 — the high-water mark for a Croatian-heritage player in MLB to date.
Andrew's cousin and a fellow Sacramento product of Croatian descent, Daniel made the Giants' roster and debuted in the majors in 2026 — keeping the family's catching lineage, and Croatia's growing baseball footprint, very much alive this season.
The tour closes in Tuscany: one game against an Italian Selection Team in Grosseto, then a morning practice on the coast and an afternoon at the beach with the Francisco Cervelli Academy.
Italy is Europe's baseball flagship: currently 14th in the WBSC world rankings (late March 2026), and historically as high as 9th (December 2012). Grosseto itself sits in Tuscany's baseball heartland, a region that has fed the national program for decades.
Source: WBSC World Rankings via Wikipedia, dated March 26, 2026.
Along the way Italy also beat Puerto Rico 8–6 to punch their semifinal ticket. Four wins, one heartbreaker, and a program's best-ever World Baseball Classic — all under a first-year manager.
Born in Valencia, Venezuela, Cervelli qualified to represent Italy through his father Emanuele's Italian heritage, playing for the national team at the 2009 and 2017 World Baseball Classics. As a big leaguer, he caught for the New York Yankees (2008–2014), Pittsburgh Pirates (2015–2019), Atlanta Braves, and Miami Marlins, hitting .268 with 41 home runs across his career and winning the World Series with the Yankees in 2009.
On January 24, 2025, Cervelli was named Italy's new national team manager, replacing Mike Piazza. In his very first tournament in charge — the 2026 World Baseball Classic — he guided Italy to its best-ever finish, a run this tour gets to celebrate up close with the players from his academy on the beach in Castiglione della Pescaia.
Photo (Pirates era, cropped): Wikimedia Commons
Six stops, six different diamonds — from Ducksfield's home comforts to a Tuscan coastal field just steps from the beach.
Field photos supplied by the tour. The Tuscan Coast Beaches photo is sourced from Wikimedia Commons, linked on the image for full author/license details.
