Charles Urbanus hangs ’em up
The rumours were there for quite a while already. Today the word came out. Manager Charles Urbanus is leaving L&D Amsterdam Pirates. A decision that was made earlier in the season.
Urbanus decided to call it quits because he cannot combine the job with his regular (real life) job with Topsport Amsterdam as general manager CTO Amsterdam (a school for juveniles with a big talent in sports).
As a manager, Urbanus had a lot of experience under his belt. After his active career (he retired after the 1986 season in which he helped his now defunct club Amstel Tijgers to win the Dutch championship), he was manager with (then Levi’s) Neptunus (1991-1994) and had several stints with Amsterdam Pirates: 1995-1997 (in the overgangsklasse, after Pirates had relegated) and 2010-2012 and 2014-2018.
Charles Urbanus jr, son of Dutch baseball great Han Urbanus, who once turned down a contract with the New York Giants organization in the early 1950s and nephew of another Dutch baseball great Charles Urbanus sr, was a thoroughbred baseball player.
He debuted in the Dutch hoofdklasse in 1971 with OVVO from Amsterdam. After OVVO was hit by a scandal in which the soccer players of the club were paid, Urbanus and many others decided to leave the club and to establish a new baseball club, Amstel Tijgers. After spending their first season in the overgangsklasse, the team earned the promotion to the hoofdklasse by winning their league undefeated in 1977. In the 1979 and 1980, Amstel Tijgers won the Dutch championship. In his final year, 1986, Urbanus and Amstel Tijgers won the Dutch championship for the final time.
Urbanus started his hoofdklasse career as a pitcher, but thanks to physical problems, he was forced to play other positions. In his final year, he played at shortstop and was used as a closer for the final innings of the game.
Next to his impressive career in the hoofdklasse, Urbanus also played for the Dutch national team. From 1972 through 1986 he played 131 games for that team. He appeared in five World Championships and six European Championships.
As a manager he guided L&D Amsterdam Pirates to their fourth and final Dutch title in 2011 and to a European title in 2016.
With Urbanus retiring, L&D Amsterdam Pirates is still looking for a replacement.