(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Opener First Division & two games Urbanus Tournament cancelled due to cold and snow
Nederlands
  AMSTERDAM / OOSTERHOUT (Neth.) -
On Friday-evening (April 1), the regular season in the First Division was scheduled to begin with the game between Twins Oosterhout-2 and UVV.
That game was to start at 7:30 PM at the home-site of Twins in Oosterhout.
However, due to the cold weather conditions, as well as snow (!), the game was cancelled.
Due to the weather and field conditions, Saturday's game between Amsterdam Pirates-2 and Jeka was also scrubbed.
No new dates for these two games have been announced yet.
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...The pumping station in Cruquius... |
As of now, the First Division will now open on Saturday-morning at 11 AM with the game between HCAW-2 and Wassenaar.
This game will start this early, as the main-squad of HCAW plays a home-game of the Urbanus Tournament in the afternoon.
Three more First Division-games are scheduled for Saturday.
Six games are scheduled for Sunday.
It was reported that Friday was the coldest April 1 (no joke) in the Netherlands since temperatures were first recorded.
The lowest temperature recorded on Friday was 1,8 degrees Celsius (35,2 Fahrenheit), due to a freezing cold northeaster polar wind.
With that, it was the coldest day (whatever date) since 1963.
And it was the coldest April 1 since 1901.
Back then, the lowest temperature was 2,5 degrees C (36,5 F).
The Netherlands was one of the first countries to record temperatures on a regulas basis.
At De Bilt, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), founded in January 1854, records temperatures since 1901.
However, measurements are recorded consecutively in the Netherlands since December 1705 when hydraulic engineer, cartographer and astronomer Nicolaus Samuelis Cruquius (1678-1754) started doing so in the city of Delft with the recording of temperatures and precipitation.
Before that, Nicolaes Janszoon van Wassenaar (ca. 1570-ca. 1630), a doctor from Amsterdam, already performed some weather measurements between 1622 and 1630.
That was also done between 1627 and 1637 by Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637), who was one of the first to have a weather station in Dordrecht.
Unfortunately, the measurements of the last two have been lost.
Between Hoofddorp (the site of baseball- and softball-club Hoofddorp Pioniers) and Heemstede (the site of RCH-Pinguïns), there is a small village with the name of Cruquius.
The village is named after the steam pumping station (and now museum) De Cruquius, which in its turn was named after the above mentioned Nicolaus Cruquius, who was born as Nicolaas Kruik on the island of Vlieland.
Kruik later latinized his name to Cruquius.
The pumping station houses the largest steam engine in the world.
The first two games of the 40th edition of the annual In Memoriam Charles Urbanus Sr. Tournament that were scheduled to be played on Thursday-evening (March 31) were also both cancelled due to weather conditions.
So far during the exhibition season, which opened early March, the weather was very cooperable
Although there were some cold days, none of the exhibition games scheduled by big league-teams were scrubbed for weather-related reasons.
After some nice (and sunny) days, the weather-predictions changed on Wednesday.
Not only would the temperature drop from Thursday on, snow was also predicted from the late afternoon.
Indeed, it started to snow on Thursday-afternoon.
The Urbanus Tournament was the lone tournament that could be played in both 2020 and 2021.
Most other events in those years were cancelled due to measures against the coronavirus (COVID-19).
As the tournament traditionally is scheduled in the week preceeding the start of the regular season, it was re-scheduled during the preparations of the (shortened) 2020 and 2021 season.
Like last year, the four participating teams would all first play a game at their home-site, instead of all games at the site of organisor HCAW in Bussum.
On Thursday, games would be played in Amsterdam and Oosterhout.
Coming Saturday, games are scheduled in Rotterdam and Bussum.
The final two games will be played on Sunday in Bussum.
Due to the cold weather conditions (and predictions), the game between reigning champion L&D Amsterdam Pirates and HCAW, which was to be played in Amsterdam, was already cancelled on Wednesday-afternoon.
The game between Twins Oosterhout and Curaçao Neptunus, to be played in Oosterhout, was cancelled on Thursday-afternoon.
As both games are exhibition games, no risks were taken that might result in injuries, a week before the start of the new season..
The games will not be re-scheduled.
Instead, the two games that are scheduled for Saturday, will now serve as Semi-Finals.
On that day, Neptunus and Pirates will meet in Rotterdam (2 PM), while HCAW and Twins will play in Bussum (3 PM).
The winners then will meet in the Final (3 PM) on Sunday, while the losers will play for third and fouth place (12 PM).
Also cancelled was the opening-game of the annual J.C.J. Mastenbroek Tournament in Enschede on Friday-evening between the softball-teams of host Tex Town Tigers and SK Joudrs Praha from the Czech Republic.
(April 1)
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