(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen & Robert Bos)
 First games played as Exhibition Season resumes
Nederlands
        AMSTERDAM / OOSTERHOUT / BUSSUM / THE HAGUE / HOOFDDORP / ROTTERDAM / AMERSFOORT / HAARLEM (Neth.) -
On Saturday-afternoon (July 4), the first exhibition games were played by teams from the Dutch Major League.
More games followed on Sunday.
This weekend, 118 days after the last game was played on Sunday, March 8, the teams returned to the fields to play again.
The exhibition season opened on Saturday, March 7 with HCAW playing against its second team, while another scheduled game was cancelled due to field conditions.
The next day, Hoofddorp Pioniers also played an exhibition game against its second team.
These were the lone two games to be played this season so far.
From March 14 on, all teams would get into action to prepare for the season opener on Thursday, April 16.
But on March 12, the Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Association (KNBSB) announced that it had cancelled all games through March 31 due to measures taken by the Dutch Government against the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), which by then had become a pandemic.
Also, several (international) pre-season tournaments were dropped from the schedule, either by the organizing club or by the KNBSB.
Initially, the regular season in the Dutch big league was scheduled to open on Thursday, April 23.
On March 2, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced that the Final Baseball Olympic Qualifier (scheduled for April 1-5) was postponed to June 17-21.
After that announcement, the season-schedule was adjusted an on March 11, the KNBSB announced that three 3-game series had been transfered to other dates.
Also, instead on April 23, the season now would open on April 16.
The next day, all activities in the exhibition season were cancelled.
On March 15, the opening games in the second highest league ('Overgangsklasse'), which was to start its season on Friday, April 3, were cancelled.
On March 23, the start of the big league-season was postponed.
Further postponements were announced on April 1 and 29 and on May 12.
On June 25, the KNBSB announced that the regular season will open on Thursday, July 23.
As announced earlier, teams will get three weeks to prepare for the opening games.
In order to do so, a schedule of exhibition games was compiled, which included games that already were planned for a specifice date in what would have been the regular season.
Games were scheduled to be played on Thursday-evening, then on Saturday and Sunday.
But in the days that followed, the new exhibition schedule was adjusted somewhat.
The games on the first two Thursdays (July 2 and 9) were dropped, as these evenings will be used for practices and intersquad games.
Also, last week, it was announced that the annual In Memoriam Charles Urbanus Sr. Tournament will be played after all.
This year, the event was scheduled for April 17-19 in what initially was the be the closing weekend of the exhibition season to be followed by Opening Night on July 23.
However, the start of the season was moved up one week after the postponing of the Olympic Qualifier.
At that moment, tournament-host HCAW hoped to move its event to an earlier date, but in the end, all games were cancelled due to the coronavirus-measures.
The 38th edition of the Urbanus Tournament now will be played on July 16, 18 and 19 on four different locations, as the four participating teams all will play a home-game on its own site.
The final two games then will be played at HCAW's site in Bussum.
In the previous weeks, several practice sessions were conducted, individual or with (small) groups when possible.
Last Thursday, Hoofddorp Pioniers and Curaçao Neptunus played intersquad games against their second teams.
The other teams had a practice session.
On a cloudy and somewhat rainy Saturday-afternoon, six of the eight big league-teams got into action.
All coaches stated that the result of the games was not important and will not be important during the brief exhibition season.
It is now just preparing for the season and getting the feeling and rhythm back of being on the field.
...L&D Amsterdam Pirates Head Coach Michael Duursma...
...looks on during a practice session...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Reigning champion L&D Amsterdam Pirates played at home against Hoofddorp Pioniers.
Both teams agreed to play only one game this weekend.
In case, Saturday's game was cancelled, they would have played on Sunday.
Amidst a drizzling rain on Saturday, the two teams hoped to play ten innings, but stopped after eight.
Michael Duursma, the new Head Coach of Amsterdam Pirates, used six pitchers.
Veteran righthander Rob Cordemans started and threw the first inning.
He was followed by Jim Ploeger (one inning), Juan Carlos Sulbaran (two), Mike Groen (one), Tom de Blok (two) and Nick Veltkamp (one).
Rookies Matz Schutte and Naut Kragt were scheduled the ninth and tenth inning, but these innings were not played.
De Blok was scheduled to play professionally again this season in the organization of the Detroit Tigers, but last week the entire Minor League-season was cancelled.
Pioniers' Head Coach Mervin Gario used five pitchers.
Scott Prins, Sander Helmendach and Daniël Vos all threw two innings.
Rookie Sebastian Kok then threw the seventh inning and Lars Broersen took the mound fot the eighth.
Pioniers took a lead in this game, then some defensive errors led to runs for Pirates.
The game ended with a 5-5 score.
Rob Has and Peter de Haan were the umpires.
At Oosterhout, Curaçao Neptunus played a 9-inning game against Twins Oosterhout.
There was some drizzling rain in the early innings, but the conditions were fine to play.
Neptunus won the game (which took some 3½ hours) with a 5-4 score.
Neptunus' Head Coach Ronald Jaarsma used four pitchers.
Diegomar Markwell started and threw two innings.
Kaj Timmermans (three), Kevin Kelly (two) and Gianison Boekhoudt (two) followed.
Jeffrey Arends, Head Coach of Twins, also inserted four pitchers.
Starter Koen Postelmans threw two innings, then Thomas Roijers was on the mound for four innings.
Pastor Enrique Martínez Chavez then threw the next two innings and Raf Cocu completed the game by pitching the ninth.
Twins took an early 3-0 lead off of Markwell.
Neptunus came back to 3-2, Twins took some more distance (4-2), but by scoring runs in the seventh and eighth inning, Neptunus came alongside (4-4).
In the top of the ninth, Gianison Boekhoudt walked, advanced to third base on a single by Greg Muller and scored on a wild pitch.
Boekhoudt, who was the designated hitter, not only scored the winning run, but also became the winning pitcher.
Edwin Lousa and rookie Jeffrey Bentsnijder were the umpires in Oosterhout.
At Bussum, HCAW and Quick Amersfoort played a 6-inning game.
In the last at bat, HCAW won the game with a 5-4 score.
In this game, Roy van de Wateringen and Martijn Bosschaart were the umpires, while Dieks Bannink was the official scorer.
HCAW's Head Coach Dé Flanegin and Quick's Head Coach René de Vries both used three pitchers, including two lefthanded starters.
Nick Keur started for HCAW and threw three innings, then was followed by Luuk ter Beek (two) and Johannes Verroen Garcia (one).
For Quick, all pitchers threw two innings.
Brian van Laar was the starter and he was relieved by Amar van Zwieten and Jasper Popken.
HCAW took an early 4-0 lead, but that was erased by Quick Amersfoort in the fifth and sixth inning.
In the bottom of the first inning, HCAW scored three runs with two outs.
Bob van der Meer (walk) and Rodney Daal (single) then both scored on a double by Kevin Dirksen, who later scored himself on an error.
In the second inning, Brennan Nijhof made it a 4-0 score with a single.
Quick scored twice in the fifth inning on a single by Denzel Brooks and a force play-grounder by Jules Cremer.
Two runs were then added in the sixth at bat to make it a 4-4 score.
Bryan Engelhardt led off the at bat with a walk and scored when Tijmen Takke followed with a homerun.
In the bottom of the sixth, HCAW re-took the lead.
Nijhof then reached third base on an error and scored on a grounder by Van der Meer.
With that, reliever Verroen became the winning pitcher.
He also was the winning pitcher in HCAW's only only played exhibition game on March 7.
On Sunday, the weather improved and four games were played under very acceptable weather conditions.
At Amersfoort, Quick Amersfoort hosted HCAW.
The game was halted with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning because of pitch-counts.
Quick Amersfoort trailed 5-2, but went on to win 9-5.
Efrem Silvania and John Beltman were the umpires.
Dennis Burgersdijk (3 1/3 inning), Gio de Graauw (1 2/3 inning) and Johannes Verroen Garcia (one inning) pitched for HCAW.
Verroen also closed the game on Saturday.
When he reached his pitch-count limit for today in the bottom of the sixth, then game ended.
Colin van Laar (3 2/3 inning), Jan-Willem Geerts (2/3 inning) and Jhan Rifaela (1 2/3 inning) threw for Quick Amersfoort.
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...Rodney Daal, Rachid Engelhardt & Runai Coran all homered...
(© Photos Daal/Engelhardt: Henk Seppen; © Photo Coran: Robert Bos) |
Rachid Engelhart, Runai Coran (both Quick Amersfoort) and Rodney Daal (HCAW) all hit 2-run homeruns.
Engelhardt hit his homerun in the fourth inning when De Graauw took over the HCAW-pitching for Burgersdijk.
Coran, who last season played for DSS, homered in the sixth inning for his new team off of Verroen.
Daal homered in the fifth inning off of Geerts.
Initially, HCAW trailed 2-1, but then took a 5-2 lead.
Thereafter, the Bussum-team was held scoreless.
Quick Amersfoort came alongside, then added four more runs to win 9-5.
At Rotterdam, Curaçao Neptunus played at home against Twins Oosterhout and won 12-2 in a 7-inning game.
Martijn Bosschaat and André Ficken were the umpires.
Orlando Yntema started for Neptunus and threw four innings, then three pitchers threw one inning each.
After Aaron de Groot had pitched the fifth inning, rookie Kevin Bakker threw the sixth and Berry van Driel closed by pitching the seventh inning.
Bakker is one of the pitchers of Tridents, the second team of Neptunus.
Neptunus had a productive first inning scoring four runs on one hit off of two pitchers, who threw some walks and also hit some batters.
Marvin Brown started for Twins, but was relieved after 2/3 inning by rookie Finn Kops, who threw 1 2/3 inning.
Hereafter, Jan Evertse was on the mound for 2 2/3 inning.
Raf Cocu, who closed the game for Twins on Saturday, pitched the next 1 1/3 inning.
Catcher Dave Janssen then pitched the seventh and final inning for the Oosterhout-team.
At Oosterhout, Silicon Storks played its first game and faced the second team of Twins Oosterhout.
Edwin Louisa and Rob Has were the umpires.
Another game was scheduled for Saturday at the home site of Storks in The Hague, but that was cancelled.
Storks outscored the team from Twins with a 12-1 score, but nine innings were played.
Eugene Henson, the new Head Coach of Storks, used four pitchers.
Nick Winkel started for the team from The Hague and threw 2 2/3 inning.
The righthander was followed by a pitcher from the second team of Storks, who pitched 2 1/3 inning.
Hereafter, American righthander William Sowers threw the next 1 2/3 inning.
Diornick Sanchez closed the game for Storks, throwing 2 1/3 inning.
Initially, Storks was to play in the weekend against DSS/Kinheim, but these games were dropped from the schedule.
On Sunday, at Haarlem, DSS/Kinheim played a game against its second team.
The two DSS/Kinheim-teams made it a real exhibition game with a lot of changes.
Besides that, one team had 14 batters in its batting order, the other 11.
Also, not all innings were not all completed.
The main-squad of DSS/Kinheim won 9-2 in an 8-inning game in which players were used as umpires.
Michael Crouwel, the Head Coach of DSS/Kinheim, used five of his pitchers, two of them pitching for the second team.
Glenn Wassink (three innings), Jelle Bing (three) and Bas Timmer (two) threw for the main-squad.
Ben Neijndorff started for the second team, then was followed by Rick Rizvic.
Both also threw three innings.
Joeri Kesseler and Robyn Clara, who both are on the roster of the big league-team, then each threw one inning for the second team.
During the games played in the weekend, the protocols and meaures announced for playing the games these season, were first implemented.
There will be no handshakes, no high-fives, no tobacco chewing or spitting, everyone has to pick up his own equipment (like gloves, bats, helmets), balls are frequently changed, as much social distance in the dug-outs, non-essental support staff or non-players outside the dug-out when possible, umpires picking up new balls themselves, not bat-boys/girls allowed, etc.
Amsterdam Pirates Head Coach Michael Duursma: ,,It was no big problem.
In the past months, we got used to giving no hands.
Our pitchers are sitting in our batting cage at the rightfield-side of the field, that has a roof, so, they are sitting dry there.
I'm happy with these three weeks to prepare, we will need them''.
Mervin Gario, Head Coach of Hoofddorp Pioniers, confirmed the words of Duursma: ,,Everything went fine''.
Umpire Rob Has: ,,We had no problems in Amsterdam.
In the first inning, a few times telling a player that spitting is allowed.
It went well''.
Neptunus Head Coach Ronald Jaarsma: ,,We encountered no problems with the new rules.
Twins has new dug-outs that are much larger, so that was no problem also.
We just have to comply with the new rules''.
Jeffrey Arends, Head Coach of Twins Oosterhout, added: ,,It was good to be back on the field.
All went well''.
Michael Crouwel, Head Coach of DSS/Kinheim: ,,It was nice weather to play.
I've seen some nice things.
And also some things that we will address next Tuesday during practice.
The most important things was that no one got hurt.
Everything went well, the dug-outs are big enough''.
René de Vries, Head Coach of Quick Amersfoort: ,,The scores are not important.
We play to get in our rhythm, pitchers facing real batters.
They work on pitch-counts at the moment.
All went well in our games''.
Eugene Henson, Head Coach of Storks: ,,We had no problems.
We just played baseball''.
(July 2-5)
Standings Exhibition Season
Scores
Schedule
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