Today, the baseball community mourns the passing of Hank Aaron. Besides the Dutch baseball community, not many know about the visit he once paid to the Netherlands. There is some footage (Kodak Super 8) about this visit. Back then in 1974, Hank Aaron visited the Netherlands as part of a promotion by Rob Muller, who…
I bumped into this English baseball newsletter created in 1973. It was tweeted by @ExtrainningsUK. It is nice to see how people from abroad are writing about the Netherlands. In this newsletter, it is written that former MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn visited the Netherlands during the 1973 European Championship and regarded the Dutch turf better…
In this episode of Ballparks around the World, we pay attention to the oldest baseball stadium in the Netherlands: the Pim Mulier Stadium. After the city of Haarlem organized the first baseball week in 1961, it was clear that a bigger venture was needed. So the city of Haarlem started to make plans for a…
The freak accident at Fenway Park, last Friday, where a 44-year old woman was hit by a broken bat, makes me wonder why there is no netting in many of the US baseball stadiums. I must admit that I have been to only three MLB stadiums and three MiLB stadiums so far, but nowhere, except…
Like said before until 1963 baseball was dominated by teams from Amsterdam and Haarlem. But in 1963 out of nowhere Sparta from Rotterdam became Dutch champion. From 1963 to 1974 the club clinched nine national titles, a record only to be improved in 1985 by Haarlem Nicols and later by DOOR Neptunus from Rotterdam. Haarlem…
