The Latest Fashion In French Diamonds

And there are some genuine players. Philippe Bonnery didn't join an organized team until 1985, when he was 20. That year he was the centerfielder on a national squad made up of club team all-stars, and later Bonnery played junior college ball at Citrus College in California.

"Ten years ago, if you mentioned baseball to a Frenchman, he would look at you like you were from Mars," PUC captain Andr� Lebhar says. "Now, he would say, 'I've heard of it.' " When Lebhar's family—he has a French mother and an American father—returned to Paris in 1978 after a dozen years in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the then 16-year-old junior high school catcher put away his gear. Then his older brother, Lionel, spotted a sign at school: BASEBALL: CA EXISTE � PARIS! The two brothers quickly signed up with the PUC club team. Andr�, a hearing-aid technician who speaks Parisian French and Brooklyn English, is now credited with showing the French the way the game should be played. He remains a catcher and second baseman for PUC as well as for the national team.

Lionel, now 30, played second base for PUC and under the pseudonym Hellel contributes to Strike, a glossy French baseball publication. Strike founder and managing editor Didier Huon owns a high-construction maintenance firm that has repaired many Paris landmarks, including Notre Dame and the Louvre. "With these jobs I can eat and get money to spend on baseball," says Huon, a 30-something former player for Paris's Broken Arm Team, popularly known as BAT. Huon, who picked up baseball from Americans while working on oil rigs in Saudi Arabia, founded the quarterly three years ago. He claims a circulation of 10,000.

Huon has served as live commentator on World Series telecasts at one of Paris's American bars and collects baseball memorabilia and photos for his office. Huon is also trying to organize public relations for la F�d�, an uphill battle. Callewaert, who caught for PUC and still umpires and coaches Softball, believes that better statistics are essential to develop fan interest. "We need our own .368 Ty Cobb, .553 Cy Young stuff. Don't even ask who was the best frappeur in France last year," he says.

Strike is doing its part to build interest with coverage of local teams, international baseball and a sliver of major league news. Acad�mie Fran�aise be damned, French players use the terms windup, balk, stretch, full count, catcher, fungo, infield fly, bunt and foul ball. A few French words have passed muster, such as champ for outfield, plaque for home plate, arbitre for umpire and gant for glove, but hitters use la batting glove.

But baseball's U.S. connection runs deep. When Callewaert pleads for foreign coaching, saying, "We now have guys who at age 16 can chew tobacco and spit like John Wayne, but whose windups are shaky," he's also revealing how closely he links baseball to what he perceives as the heart of America.

As with other American signature items, from cars to computers, Japan has stepped in. In 1989 Japanese electronics giant Hitachi undertook sponsorship of PUC and a year later started underwriting the French national team. It provided money for such things as equipment, uniforms and a coach, Yoshio Yoshida, known as Japan's Pee Wee Reese during his playing days in the 1950s.

So now the American pastime is being taught by the Japanese to the French. Baseball has become a truly international sport.