Cantincrode Baseball and Softball Stars Throws The Towel After 75 Years

Today, the Belgian newspaper Nieuwsblad posted an article about the Cantincrode Baseball and Softball Stars, the former Mortsel Stars. The 75-year old club throws the towel and will cease to excist after the 2025 season.

The end of an era. Baseball club Cantincrode Baseball and Softball Stars announced to call it quits at the end of the 2025 season. A sad ending for the five-time Belgian champion.

“It hurts terribly,” says chairman Damon Baesen. “This was my club. I have been a part of it for twenty years. But there was no other solution. In the past few months, we’ve tried everything to survive. You try to fight back as long as possible, but at some point you just throw in the towel. There was no point in muddling through any longer.”

According to Baesen, the reason for the demise is the forced move in 2023. The Province of Antwerp, that owned the piece of land where the Mortsel Stars, as the club was called back then, had its baseball and softball facility, thought a commercial children’s playground was more important that a sports club. The Province forced the club to pay for the move itself and also let the club pay for the dismantling of the facility. This was a huge financial blow. The club organized a go fund me, but that was not enough to cover the costs.

Thanks to the move, the club lost its club house, an important source of income. Also the family atmosphere was lost. The club moved from a facility with two fields to one with only one baseball field, with the result that club members looked for greener pastures.

At the moment of the move, the club had around one-hundred-and-fifty members, currently there are thirty-one left, all youth players of the U12 and U15 team, not a solid base to move on.

To find a new home for the youth players, the club approached Belgium’s oldest baseball club Antwerp Eagles. That club did not have any youth teams anymore, so the remaining thirty-one players of Cantincrode Baseball and Softball Stars were more than welcome.

We can thank the Province of Antwerp for killing another baseball club in Belgium.

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