Today the France International Tournament or Yoshida Challenge teed off with the opening game between Germany and France.
This tournament is a preparation for the upcoming European Cup in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands.
Next to Germany and France, also the defending champion the Netherlands and a team of internatonal stars are participating. The Dutch players representing the Kingdom of the Netherlands are not the only Dutch participating in this tournament. The International Stars also contain two players from the Dutch Hoofdklasse: Melving Purdue of DSS from Haarlem and Jochem Koedijk of the neighbours of DSS, Kinheim.
The German team contains mainly players from the highest German League, the first Bundesliga, but there is one player that plays for a team in a lower league. Ernorbel Marquez plays for the Berlin Flamingos of the second Bundesliga.
Also on the roster of the French team, there are two players from the Dutch Hoofdklasse
Norbert Jongerius , who has a Dutch father and a French mother and Omar Williams.
Both playing for UVV from Utrecht.
Enough for the Dutch players, on to the game of today.
France 6 – 8 Germany 
In a pretty close game, Germany stayed at the right side of the score. Both teams collected more than ten hits (Germany thirteen and France ten). The Germans committed two errors.
Germany took a 2-0 lead as it scored a run in the first inning and one in the second. But the French would come back to tie the game in the third inning as Norbert Jongerius stole home plate and Maxime Lefevre tripled to center field to drive in Felix Brown.
In the fifth inning, Norbert Jongerius scored on a wild pitch to give France a one run lead.
But the Germans would take the lead again when Chris Howard doubled to left field to drive in Max Boldt for the game tying run. Howard eventually scored from third on a sac fly to center field hit by Jendrick Speer.
In the next three innings, Germany would score four runs in total. But France wasn’t about to give up. In the top of the eighth inning they scored three runs. A single by Jorge Hereaud drove in two runs. The third would be scored by Leo Jiminian, who pinch ran for Hereaud, on a sinlge to left field hit by Luc Piquet.
Trailing by two runs in the ninth, the French pushed one more time. With no outs the French loaded the bases. The play by play doesn’t tell quite exactly what happened then, but when Frederic Walter struck out swinging, Bastien Dagneau was tagged out at home plate. Probably the French manager ordered for a hit and run and the players failed in the execution of it. Jacques Boucheron flied out to right field for the final out of the game.
Maurice Wilhelm earned the win for the Germans after three innings in relief. He gave up an unearned run on two hits and a walk.
Antoine Villard took the loss. He pitched one inning and gave up two runs on three hits and walked one.
The best hitter for Germany was Chris Ziegler, going 3 for 3 with an RBI and a run scored.
Dutch Baseball Hangout 