Now the Dutch baseball season, the MiLB season and MLB season are over, I slowly start to realize that it is time for baseball hibernation. But the problem is that I don’t want to hibernate. I try to postpone that moment as long as possible.
What can you do to get through the off season when you’re a baseball nut like me?
Thanks goodness the Korean Professional Baseball League’s season isn’t completely over yet. The Samsung Lions (with Duth pitcher Rick van den Hurk in their ranks) and the Nexen Heroes are facing each other in the championship series. Yesterday the Nexen Heroes won 4-2. Rick van den Hurk allowed two runs in 6.1 innings and got a no-decision.
Another league that I can follow now is the Australian Baseball League. The season in Australia has started last week and will last until January/February 2015. The games can be watched through the website of the league. The games are scheduled around the weekend on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The teams that participate in this by MLB protected league are the Sydney Blue Sox, the Canberra Cavalry, the Perth Heat, the Adelaide Bite, the Brisbane Bandits and the Melbourne Aces. Many minor league players join the league to get some more playing time. In 2011 Duch native Didi Gregorius played for the Canberra Cavalry.
Besides following these leagues, I keep an eye at the off season moves of my favorite clubs, and I keep a close eye at the eventual moves that Dutch and Netherlands Antillian players make.
Just when I thought that I could watch the 2014 Asia Series, I read that this event has been taken off the calendar due to the busy schedule of the proposed participants (teams from the Australian Baseball League (ABL), Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), European Club Championship, Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB)).
So when the KBO season is over, I can only watch Australian baseball around the weekend. Nothing wrong with that, but I have been spoiled with MLB.tv last season. Compared to that, only some ABL games around the weekend is simply too little to stay away from hibernation… It will be tough to get through the other days, especially when every major sport site is full with news about the NFL (yawn).
If I only could prepare for the upcoming season myself. But since I blew my arm out in 2007 that is no longer an option anymore. And how much I like to watch baseball and how much I like to write about it, there is nothing like playing the game yourself.
You may understand that I am craving for the first Spring Training games in Arizona and Florida. As soon as they start I know that spring is in the air and that better times are coming again.
No problem! I’ve been kind of in the same boat, which is incidentally how I found your site.
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Thank you.
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I usually use ustream to locate the games when I’m looking around. More often than not it’s the Venezuelan team Magallanes, and the Mexican team Culiacan that are playing. As for the Cuban games, this link: http://www.beisbolencuba.com/videos/juegos-en-vivo, usually shows a day game or so. I’m usually at work when that’s going, so I’ve rarely had the opportunity to use it. The Dominican leagues and the other Mexican teams are streamed and broadcast, so presumably there is a way, but I haven’t looked further into it than that.
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Can you provide a link?
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Well the Central/Caribbean/South American winter leagues are running through the winter, so there’s that to follow too, if you have the interest. I’ve caught a few Cuban, Venezuelan, and Mexican games here in there since they’ve started, and the production quality on the broadcasts is a good deal better than the currentl ABL (or at least the stream out of Perth.
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