if there's some Dutch baseball fan around: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1495527 Netherlands are the defending champions.
we had a good preparation by winning the 'haarlemse honkbal week' that was held last week. we have won the last 5 editions of the european championship so will most likely win this one as well
We beat the crap out of Cuba (10-0) and the USA (12-2 and 4-2). The match against japan was thrilling!
It certainly gets more exposure in the media than it gets in Germany (it's the other way around with ice hockey or American football). So basically your group of 'nobodies' is bigger than that of anywhere else in Europe. That Curacao thing may be spot on as to why, though.
You must be kidding, first we play an hour baseball with a tennis ball and then we use that same tennisball to play soccer. So that's why we are so good in both sports By the way: the second final the Orange teams loose this year
most of it is thanks to andruw jones who unlike most dutch athletes in the us of a actually played for the dutch national side for a while.
It's a European baseball championship....it's all relative here. And besides, the Dutch baseball board claims 30,000 players, which isn't that bad in a country of 16 million. Believe me, in the UK there is probably less than a half dozen real baseball fields (dirt infield) in the whole country, so to go to Holland and see that every town over a decent size has a real baseball field is pretty cool. Put it like this, five times as many Dutch per capita play baseball as rugby and rugby is hardly an unknown sport in the USA. It's not popular, but you won't go months without meeting anybody who has played it.
This is not euro 2010 news but it is about 'honkball'. My baseball team,as a fan,has a new player in a trade.A Nederlander. He'll be in minor league,for awhile. Maybe he will make it to the major league? http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Twins-send-7footer-to-LA-to-finish-Fuentes-deal-090110
I saw the name flash by on a sports ticker and knew instantly he was Dutch by the spelling of his first name, and not just some American with a dutch name. It'll be interesting to see what he can do. With Rick Van den Hurk's career not really taking off yet I think Van Wil could be the only regular Netherlands (not including the Caribbean islanes) born player in the league. My Mariners have a promising outfielder from Haarlem in their system called Greg Halman, but I'm not sure he's ready yet.
Vanden Hurk just got called up by the Orioles since the rosters expanded, so he'll get another chance to prove himself. He's still young enough to have a decent career. The Orioles don't have a lot of pitching, so he should get that chance to tell once and for all if he's a MLB-quality pitcher. Maybe the jerseys and colors of the O's will inspire him. Loek van Mil's main claim to fame is that he's 7'1" or 2.16 m, the tallest player ever to play professional baseball in the US. He's 25 and struggling at AA-level, but he is still quite raw. Dutch baseball is something like the opposite of Dutch soccer - kids don't play that many games and the technical coaching (probably - I'm no authority, just making an educated guess) seems not to be that great, because I think one of the big reasons players from Holland have tended to struggle in US baseball is that they have this enormous learning curve to deal with. I'm not sure what the situation is out in the Netherlands Antilles coaching wise, but the Curacao Little Leaguers have won the LL World Series before, and we certainly know the weather is good enough for baseball all year round, which produces more polished players. Of course, the fact baseball is king out in the Antilles/Aruba while it's a minority sport in Holland sure helps too. Oh yeah, and it can't be a Dutch baseball thread without mentioning Rik Aalbert Blijleven, soon to be the first Dutch Hall of Famer.
Over here he would be the smallest....joking, not true Did he had his team clothing taylor made or do they have it in stock in his size? Wonder if there were any basketball coaches trying to lure him away.
That's an enormous pitcher! Dude probably feels like he's throwing the ball downward just to get it to the strike zone of most batters.
I think they do have to make custom baseball clothes for him. One of the interesting things about van Mil was that when he was signed by the Twins organization he only came to the US with about an 86 mph fastball (about 140 kph), but a couple years of refinement has increased his fastball speed to 95 (a little over 150 kph). Between that and his height he should get some chances, though he is still very wild.
The O's also have Mark Hendrickson, who stands at just under 7 feet, I think. He used to play in the NBA - he would probably tell Mil to stick to honkball!