About a week ago, you could read about the merger of two baseball clubs in the Amsterdam area (in Dutch). Last Thursday the name change of the merger club was officially confirmed.
The new merger club is the result of a decision of the city council of Diemen, a town adjacent to Amsterdam. The local alderman of sports decided that the baseball club had to move because the local hockey club needed a new facility. Rumor has it that the children of this alderman and several of his colleagues are playing at that hockey club.
Anyhow, the name of the new club, a merger between O.V.V.O. from Amsterdam and T.I.W. Survivors from Diemen, is Amsterdam Capitals. The club will have a completely new look with new uniforms and a new logo. The latter is still subject of discussion.
The new name is the result of a name the team contest among the members of the club. After two voting rounds, this name became the winner. Before this name the team contest, the club asked soccer club Ajax if they allowed them to use that name as well but since the name of Ajax is registered as a brand for sporting clubs, that was not an option.
For now, the club doesn’t have a website yet but the domain amsterdamcapitals.nl has been claimed already. It is only a matter of time before the website of the new club will go live.
According to the website of the KNBSB, the new club will sport eleven teams that will play in various leagues. The flagship baseball team will play in the “derde klasse” (third class/league,) a fourth-tier league. But according to my source at the club, there will be ten teams as the flagship men’s softball team will quit (the average age is around 60), just like the second baseball team that doesn’t want to travel big (relatively speaking since the Netherlands is a small country) distances.
The sad thing about this merger is that two clubs with their own history will disappear. Especially O.V.V.O. had a rich history as the club won six Dutch championships (1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, and 1955).
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