Ing. Ondřej Čapek

"In 1973, Mr. Tvrzník won a contract for a road project in Kurdistan in northern Iraq, near Suleimaniyah. Part of the project assignment included a topographical survey of the entire route. So a group of twelve people were sent to Iraq at that time." - "How long did that take?" - "Three months. It was from September to December." - "How long approximately was the future route or road?" - "About fifty kilometers, but it was never built, just a part of it is finished." - "Was the company [Pragoprojekt] supposed to build it too?"-"No, it was meant to be built by someone the Iraqis chose." - "Why did they choose you? Did you compete with, say, Western companies, or what was it like then? Or was Iraq more East-oriented?" - "There was of course a lot of competition from Western companies, but Mr. Tvrzník had contacts in Iraq and secured it, maybe also thanks to price."

"Then we played both softball and baseball. Our team switched to baseball only sometime in the 1970s, but softball stayed, of course. Even this split completely, later on, but that was only after the revolution in 1989. Softball and baseball ran alongside. Baseball couldn't be played at Letná, it was a bit dangerous, so it was played at the Strahov Stadium, which wasn't used at all. We got there somehow. Then the fields started to be built on rented football pitches, and that's where it was played. Softball could be played on a larger scale because it's a smaller game." - "I just read in my notes for the taping of my interview with you that you were named the best pitcher in Czechoslovakia sometime in the sixties. Could you elaborate on when and how that was, or if you were a member of the winning team?" - "We as the Black Horses would win many softball and baseball games for a long time and we were great. I only started pitching baseball; I never pitched softball. I was one of the top three or four guys here in our country, you could say even on the national level because, thanks to Ivan Běták and Mirek Vojtíšek who joined us - he was a graduate of the college of physical education and sports and a passionate baseball player who started coaching us - we began rising to a somewhat higher level. Then we also got to the point where we were in contact with the Italians, the Dutch and the Swedes, and we played international games, which we lost most of the time. But we can be proud of the fact that our successors already made it to the top."