(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen)
   Curt Smith shows power in Nicaragua
Nederlands
 CHINANDEGA (Nicaragua) -
Curt Smith is showing some offensive power in the first games of the new season in the professional Liga de Béisbol Profesional Nacional.
After the first seven games, the first baseman of the Netherlands National Baseball Team, leads the league with four homeruns.
Professional baseball was introduced in Nicaragua in 1956.
In that year, the inaugural season of the Liga Nicaragüense de Béisbol Profesional went underway.
In following years, the attention for baseball in the Central-American country grew.
However, due to economic difficulty, the league stopped in 1967.
In 2004, a new professional league was established, the Liga de Béisbol Profesional Nacional, which is in its twelfth season with the participation of four teams.
The new season went underway on October 28 and through Saturday, all teams have now played seven games.
The season has expanded with six more games, meaning all teams now play 48 instead of 42 games.
The regular season ends on January 4.
The best-of-five semi-final then opens on January 6 and the best-of-seven Final begins on January 13.
The team that finishes in first place in the regular season automatically qualifies for the Final.
The teams in second and third palce will meet in the semi-final.
Reigning champion Gigantes de Rivas opened the new season with an 8-5 loss against Indios del Boér, but currently shares first place with Oriental de Granada.
Third place is shared by Bóer and Tigres de Chinandega.
Last year, Gigantes won its second championship-title in the past three seasons.
...Curt Smith during this years...
...European Championship...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
This season, Curt Smith again plays for Tigres de Chinandega.
In January of this year, Smith and his team played in the best-of-five semi-final against Gigantes de Rivas.
Playing in that squad was another Netherlands Team-player, Yurendell de Caster, as well as Venezuelan Wuillians Vásquez, who in the past has played in the Dutch big league for HCAW in 2010.
Gigantes won the semi-final and went on to capture the Championship-title.
Vásquez is again playing for Gigantes this season.
Smith plays for the Netherlands Kingdom Team since 2009.
Since then, he participated with the Orange squad in all major tournaments, including the World Baseball Classic in 2009 and 2013, the Premier12 in 2015, the World Championship in 2009 and 2011 and the European Championship in 2012, 2014 and this year.
With the Netherlands Team, he captured the world title in 2011 and won the European title in 2014 and this year.
In 2013, he reached the semi-final of the World Baseball Classic with the Dutch team.
During the European Championship in September of this year in Hoofddorp (Netherlands), Smith was the third best hitter of the Netherlands Team.
In eight games, he batted .364 (12-for-33) with two doubles and one homerun.
Smith scored five runs and also batted in five.
Like he did last season, Curt Smith again opened the season by hitting a homerun in his first game.
Last year, he was 3-for-5 with a homerun and five runs batted in.
This time, on October 28, the first baseman batted 1-for-4, but that was a homerun off of Eulogio De La Cruz in the seventh inning.
It also was the lone run for Tigres in the game against Orientales.
Italian outfielder Paolino Ambrosino also plays for Tigres this season.
He was 1-for-4 in the opening game.
In the same day, Wuillians Vásquez was 2-for-5, both doubles, with two RBI's for Gigantes, which lost 8-5 to Bóer.
In the following days, Vásquez had a streak of six consecutive games in which he had at least one basehit and at least one RBI.
On Saturday, the Venezualan infielder extended his hitting streak to seven, but his RBI-streak ended.
In the first game between Tigres and Gigantes on October 30, Vásquez homered in a big 15-1 victory for Gigantes.
Smith was 1-for-4 in that game.
Two days later, Tigres won 5-4 against Gigantes in a rain-shortened game that was halted in the top of the seventh inning.
Smith was 1-for-3, while Vásquez was 2-for-2 with an RBI.
Last Thursday, Smith contributed with a double and two RBI's in a 6-4 win of Tigres against Indios.
On that day, Vásquez was 2-for-6 with an RBI.
He put Gigantes ahead in the first inning, but then opponent Oriental came alongside in the second inning.
The game was then decided in the top of the 15th inning in which Oriental scored four runs to win 5-1.
The game lated five hours and 15 minutes to become the third longest in the history of the LBPN.
The longest ever, which lasted 18 innings, took six hours and two minutes and was played in 2004.
On Friday, both Tigres and Gigantes won big.
Tigres won 13-2 at Oriental, thanks to a productive game by Smith
Tigres took an early lead in the first inning when Smith hit a 2-run homerun off of Rodney Rodríguez
In the fourth inning, Smith added a solo-homerun off of Milton Benavides.
Smith was 3-for-4, scored three runs and batted in three runs in the game, which had a 25-minute rain-delay in the sixth inning.
Gigantes won 13-1 at Bóer with Vásquez hitting a basehit and batting in a run in his sixth consecutive game.
On Saturday, Tigres and Gigantes faced each other again.
Gigantes took an early 3-0 lead in the first inning, highlighted by a 2-run homerun by Dominican Anderson Feliz, who was 3-for-6 and batted in five runs.
Tigres got one run back in the second, then came alongside in the third when Smith hit his fourth homerun of the season off of Dominican starter Jonathan Aristill.
Gigantes then broke the 3-3 tie by scoring three runs in the fourth inning and led 11-4 halfway the ninth inning.
Tigres then rallied for four runs, but ended up just short, losing 11-8.
Also on Saturday, Oriental was leading 6-0 halfway the sixth inning against Bóer.
They had opened the score in the fifth inning when Juan Carlos Torres hit a grand slam homerun.
Last season, Torres led the league in homeruns with six.
However, Bóer scored once in the sixth, then rallied for five runs in the seventh to come alongside and won 7-6 in the tenth inning on a walk-off homerun by Juan Carlos Urbina.
(November 7)
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