(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
  Netherlands Team to participate again in Yoshida Challenge in France
Nederlands
 PARIS (France) -
The Netherlands National Baseball Team will participate again this year in the International Baseball Tournament - Yoshida Challenge in France.
The second edition of the event, which is approved by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), will be held August 31 through September 4.
On Thursday (February 18), the Fédération Française de Baseball et Softball announced that the Netherlands will be one of the four participants in the event, which will be held in Sénart Ville Nouvelle, near Paris.
The others are Germany, International Stars and host France.
The team of the International Stars will be compiled from active or former professional players, who participate in various international competitions.
This team has won the Prague Baseball Week in the Czech Republic in 2013 and 2014.
Unfortunately, Japan was unable to participate this time with a team.
The schedule is expected to be announced in March.
The first edition of the Yoshida Challenge was held in 2014 and then was won by the Netherlands-squad.
This years tournament is scheduled to start just over a week before the European Baseball Championship opens.
The Yoshida Challenge ends on Sunday, September 4, the European Championship in Hoofddorp and Nieuw-Vennep (Netherlands) opens on Friday, September 9.
Both the tournament in France and the European Championship are scheduled in September.
With that, there is a good chance that some of the Dutch professional Minor League-players are able to play for the Orange squad.
With that, it will be the Netherlands Kingdom Team that will participate in both events.
Two years ago, the Dutch Team had ten active professional players on its roster during the French tournament: Yurendell de Caster, Wendell Floranus, Randolph Oduber, Kalian Sams, Sharlon Schoop, Curt Smith, Hainley Statia, Juan Carlos Sulbaran, Nick Urbanus and Shawn Zarraga.
Anyway, for both the Netherlands and France, the 5-day tournament in Sénart will be an excellent final preparation for the European Championship.
In 2014, the Netherlands Team opened the first Yoshida Challenge with a small 2-0 win against Seino Unyu, which represented Japan.
In its second game, the Dutch squad shutout Belgium, 10-0.
Next, the Orange squad suffered a historic loss when it was beaten 12-8 by France.
The only other loss against France came 77 years earlier, in 1937!
The Netherlands then faced France in the final and won only 3-2 to win the tournament's title.
The next day, the final Orange-roster for the European Championship, then held in the Czech Republic, was announced.
There, the Netherlands captured the European title, after being left empty-handed in the finals in 2010 and 2012.
(February 18)
Related Articles:
 Dutch Team nips France to win Yoshida Challenge. (September 9, 2014)
Historic loss Dutch BB Team in France. (September 8, 2014)
Dutch BB Team shuts out Belgium in France. (September 7, 2014)
Small win for Dutch BB Team in France. (September 6, 2014)
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