Just like earlier this year, the Dutch Baseball Hangout would like to pay attention to the transactions in the Belgian Baseball Gold (BBG) League, next year called the Top League. The transaction period in Belgium ended at December 1, so time to start with the eighth blog post. This one is about the Mortsel Stars.
The Mortsel Stars once started as the Berchem Crystals, named after a local brewery. After an odyssee the club ended in Mortsel, South of the Antwerp Airport, and adopted the name Mortsel Stars. Since the club is older than fifty years, the club was allowed to adopt the predicate “Royal”, so the official name is now Royal Mortsel Stars.
After the club was demoted at the end of the 2018 season, the club ended on top of the Eerste Klasse (second-tier league) in 2020. As the KBBSF (Royal Belgian Baseball and Softball Federation) announced that no teams could be sent down or earn a promotion due to the corona crisis. But eventually, the KBBSF, decided that the Baseball Gold league and the Eerste Klasse will be merged into a new league: the Top League, a twelve-team league.
Like several other clubs some players left the flagship team of Mortsel Stars: Sander de Saedeleer (Borgerhout Squirrels), Nguyen Boulet Diaz (Deurne Spartans, although not quite sure yet), and Nestor Jaspe (Brussels Kangaroos).
New additions to the flagship team of the Stars are: Mikka Uten (1B) and Jarno Reyniers (IF/OF). The club added also two players to their fourth senior baseball team (which serves as a farm team): Caroline Smits and Cedric Smits. This proves the club aims at a youth baseball education system.
Next to some new players, the flagship team will have two new coaches: Thierry Genot (pronounce Siey-no) and Maarten Bartels. The fourth senior (farm) team will be guided by Damon Baesen and Thierry Baesen.
If the corona crisis will allow it, the club will get back their regular asset, pitcher Luis Morales from Venezuela.
I would like to thank the chairman of the Mortsel Stars, Damon Baesen for the time he took to find the information about the transactions of the flagship team. Your help is really appreciated.
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Dutch Baseball Hangout 