Personal Stories About Ballcaps: AHC Quick

This series is inspired by the must-read book “All Caps, Stories That Justify an Outrageous Hat Collection” by Craig Colby. Craig wrote this book about the many caps he has and the stories behind it. In today’s episode, we are talking about the cap of Europe’s oldest baseball club A.H.C. (Amsterdamsche Honkbalclub) Quick.

I have been waiting for a long time before I could write this blog post. It took some time before I was able to acquire the cap of A.H.C. Quick from Amsterdam.

Not only did I play for this club and manage the game secretariat (I hope this is a good description, since I cannot find a proper English word for it), my father attended games of the club in the 1930s and 1940s.

A.H.C. Quick was founded in 1913 and won the very first official Dutch championship in 1922. Also in 1925 and 1935, the club clinched the Dutch championship.

At the end of the 1992 softball season, I decided to start playing baseball. Knowing my dad used to attend games of Quick, I decided to join that club. They asked me to play some games with them at the end of the 1992 baseball season. In my very first baseball game, we faced a pitcher, who almost threw with the speed of a slow pitch softball pitcher. I didn’t have any problems hitting his pitches, so my first thought was, hitting a baseball isn’t all that hard. But in the next game, I had to adapt that point of view. The pitcher of the opponent in that game, threw a lot faster. I managed to hit one double, but was tagged out when I tried to stretch it into a triple, but in my other at-bats, I struck out ingloriously.

At the start of the 1993 season, I was asked to manage the game secretariat. They told me that if the schedule was settled, you didn’t have a lot to do. What they didn’t tell me was that in case of a rainout it might be a lot of work. And you may guess it, it rained a lot during the 1993 season.

During the five years that I played for the club, I did a lot to help the club. Umpiring, coaching, running the clubhouse. At one point, I was asked to join the gents softball team because they lacked players. So for one season, I returned to playing softball, next to playing baseball. Nice part was that thanks to playing baseball, my throwing arm had gotten a lot stronger, so I was able to throw to second base from my knees. At the start of one game, I threw to second base after the warm up pitches. I heard a player of the opponent say: “No stealing today guys.” One player tried to steal second base, but I threw him out by about two meters (six feet).

I never excelled at bat. But at the defensive side of the game, I did rather well. I loved to chase fly balls in the outfield. During one game, I think I made about six or seven shoestring and over-the-shoulder catches. When I came out of the locker room, the coach of the opponent said to my head coach: “That left fielder of yours did a stellar job.” You may guess that I was all smiles.

The great part of playing at Quick was the diamond. It used to belong to my very first baseball club Amstel Tijgers. That club ceased to exist after the 1988 season. After not being used for two years, Quick was allowed to play at that facility. The road towards that sports complex was beautiful. From where I lived, it took me about twenty minutes to get there by bike. On both sides of the road, there were very old farm houses and meadows with cows. I enjoyed that ride every time I went there.

As I wrote earlier, my father used to attend games at A.H.C. Quick in the 1930s and 1940s. When he lived in a home for the elderly, he was demented. At one night, after I paid him a visit, he said: “Do we know each other?” I had to chuckle and said, “you may be right about that.” He asked: “Do we know each other from football (soccer)?” “No,” I said, “from baseball.” “Ah,” he said. “Did we meet at ABC (Amsterdamsche Baseball Club)?” I said: “No, we met at Quick.” “Ah, Quick. That was a nice club,” he said. I never could figure out if he meant the days that he attended games in the 1930s and 1940s or the days he attended games when I played there.

Unfortunately, after the 1997 season, I moved out of Amsterdam, so I had to cancel my membership. In the next season, I joined baseball club Urbanus from Hoorn, but I still enjoyed the days, we had to play my former team.

To me this cap has a lot of emotional value because of the great years I spent with the club. I will cherish this cap for ever.