(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Alfred Cop Fotografie, Robert Bos & Fred Reuling)
 Sports Photographer and former ADO-contributor Fred Reuling passed away
Nederlands
 THE HAGUE (Neth.) -
Fred Reuling, who has been active for many years for the baseball-section of ADO, passed away on Wednesday, November 23, two days before he would have turned 73 years.
In the past twenty-plus years, Fred Reuling has been a wellknown (local) sports photographer on baseball-, softball- and soccer-fields in and around The Hague.
Unfortunately, in the last years, Fred has been plagued by several health issues.
The memorial and cremation service will take place on Wednesday, November 30 at 3 PM at Crematorium Ockenburgh at the Ockenburghstraat 21 in The Hague.
Frederik Hendrik (Fred) Reuling was born on November 25, 1949, in The Hague, where he lived his entire life and was active in local sports-activities.
In The Hague, he has worked at the HagaZiekenhuis as an application manager.
He also trained as a radiology technician with a specialization in MRI.
Before focusing more on his photography, Fred was involved in the baseball-section of ADO since the late sixties.
In 1991, he handled the administration of the baseball youth-section.
But for many years, Fred was active in the public relations committee of the club.
And so, he was a very recognizable person around the main baseball-squad of ADO, which played in the Dutch big league.
Besides being active in publicity, Fred also has been a baseball-coach and team manager within the club, as well as a Public Address Announcer during home-games of the ADO baseball-team.
And he has done much more for the club through the years.
After ADO was dissolved in March 2015, Fred became a more frequent visitor of games played by Storks.
At ADO, after having played baseball, Fred Reuling played softball for several seasons.
In the third team of the club, amongst his teammates were Enno Warffemius and Leo van der Kroft.
Both also were involved in the organizational activities of the ADO baseball-team.
Warffemius as a sponsor, Van der Kroft also in publicity, like Fred.
By the way, Van der Kroft's father was wellknown soccer referee Leo van der Kroft, who passed away in 2016.
...A photo of John Barrett taken by...
...Fred Reuling in the seventies... |
In the years that Fred Reuling was active for ADO, many wellknown players played for the club.
Amongst them in the seventies and eighties were Berry Eijgendaal, John van Gulik, Lou Halkema, Harrie Heikoop, Ferry Neuteboom, René Nieveld, Jerry Remmerswaal, Frank van Rest, Harry Tuijn, Willem Tuijn, Rob Vakkers, Rob van der Valk, Bart Volkerijk, Erik Volkerijk, Louis Witloks and King Zschuschen.
Another player of ADO in the seventies was John Barrett, who later went on to coach at both ADO and Haarlem Nicols.
However, John Barrett became more known as a baseball- and softball-umpire in the highest leagues.
John Barrett passed away this year on March 21.
Fred Reuling continued to do some publicity activities for ADO through the early 2000s.
Amongst the players who played for ADO in those years since the nineties were José Acebal, Carlos Badaracco, Johnny Balentina, Ludwin Bernadina, Ken Brauckmiller, Berry van Driel, Aldric Dunlop, Gerald Dunlop, Oscar Faber, Harvey Gumbs, Eugene Henson, Arnold Jakoba, Robert John, Martijn Kant, Adonis Kemp, Patrick Klerx, Elton Koeiman, Raily Legito, Arthur Mari, Tetsuhiro Monna, Robert Niggebrugge, Manny Olivera, Anthony Rayer, Stefan Rayer, Sendley Reina, Hans van Renselaar, Pierre Richardson, Kalian Sams, Sherton Saturnino, Alex Spiekerman, Orlando Stewart, Jimmy Summers, Marco Tellekamp and Myron Wyman.
Fred's son Mark Reuling also played in the team of ADO in these years.
The seasons 1997 and combined, Mark played in 27 games at the big league-level for the team from The Hague.
Through the years, the baseball-team of ADO has had many different Head Coaches.
One of them of course was longtime coach Leen Volkerijk.
Other coaches in the seventies through eighties include Hans van der Lande, John Barrett, Bob Soudijn, Hugo Wapperom and Wim Onderstal.
Amongst the coaches in following years were Bart Seidel, Wim van den Heuvel, Berry Eijgendaal, Robert Niggebrugge, Bart Volkerijk, Jaap Bijl, Arthur Mari, Pete Yarasavich, Johnny Balentina, Jimmy Summers, Wim Martinus, Aldric Dunlop, Dave Daniels and Eugene Henson.
Legendary player Hudson John was an Assistant Coach several times.
...Fred during the reunion of...
...ADO-members on the day that the...
...club was dissolved on March 7, 2015...
...At left is Hugo Wapperom...
(© Photo: Robert Bos) |
ADO has always has been a real family-club.
The baseball-team played in the big league for many seasons and the women's softball-team also has played in the highest division.
Opposing teams and game-officials always felt very welcome at the cozy site in The Hague.
Before and after the game, the umpires and official scorers (and other officials) were welcomed at the board-room.
For many years, the officials were hosted by longtime club-secretary Gé Goedschalk and Henny Volkerijk, the wife of former coach Leen Volkerijk.
Other ADO-personalities with whom Fred worked through the years - and also are very wellknown in the Dutch baseball-world like Mr. Goedschalk and Mrs. Volkerijk - include Robert Bos (game-secretary), Cees Dellebeke (game-secretary and public relations), Hans van den Hamer (public relations), Herman Groen (accomodation consultant and public address announcer), Richard Caudron (team-manager baseball-team), Jan Blommenstein (team-manager and sponsor baseball-team), Jacques Klerx (team manager baseball-team), Leo van den Brun, Anneke Driessen and Bruno Korzeniewski (all team scorers).
In the early nineties, ADO have some successful seasons.
In 1992, the big league baseball-team captured the Dutch championship-title.
A year later, in Rimini (Italy), ADO won the European Cup.
And in 1994, the club organized the European Cup-tournament at its site at the Escamp III Sports Complex.
There, ADO played its home-games at the Leen Volkerijk Stadium, which was named after its longtime coach.
Since the seventies, Fred Reuling also was active as a club-umpire and led many lower level games of both seniors and youth-teams of ADO.
From 1989 on, Fred expanded his umpiring career and officiated softball-games in regional leagues within the Rayon The Hague.
Other regional softball-umpires then included John Bakker, Wil ten Bosch, Anne ten Bruijne, Fred Charité, Henk van Harrewijn, Hans van der Helm, Philippe Hubèr, Herman Kok, Ron Kok, Sonny de Palm, Piet Pannen, Gerard Salemink, Rob Smit and Al Vogel, some of whom also officiated games in national leagues at the same time.
In 1992 through 1994, Fred Reuling also officiated games in the District West.
Fred's biggest hobby has always been taking photos.
And so, early 2000, he became a free lance photographer.
As such, through the years, accompanied by his photo-camera, Fred Reuling was a frequent visitor on baseball-, softball- and soccer-fields, taking many pictures.
He was at many home-games of both the baseball- and softball-teams of ADO and Storks when the teams played in the big league.
But he also took photos of youth-games, as well as other activities on the sites of these two clubs.
Besides that, Fred also covered many soccer-games at sites of several The Hague-based clubs.
...Unfortunately, due to his illness, Fred had several...
...stays in hospitals; On the photo, he is in the Leids...
...Universitair Medisch Centrum in Leiden in 2019...
...with the statue of the Homunculus Loxodontus...
...Each time Fred was in the hospital, he visited...
...his 'friend' for a 'talk', telling him how he was doing...
(© Private-photo) |
Fred published (and sold) his photos on his own website.
But his photos were also used by the website of Haagse Topsport, Haaglanden Voetbal and the regional The Hague-section of the Algemeen Dagblad-newspaper.
Grand Slam * Stats & News also published several of Fred's photos to accompany recaps of the baseball-games played by ADO or other club-news.
Although Fred mainly was active as a photographer on sport-sites in The Hague, he also was always there during the two big international tournaments in the Netherlands, the Haarlem Baseball Weeks in Haarlem and the World Port Tournament in Rotterdam.
Besides these two events, he also was an accredited photo-journalist when the World Championship Baseball was organized in the Netherlands in 2005 and 2009.
And he was there with his camera during the European Cup-tournaments at the site of Neptunus.
Of course, Fred also was active as a photographer when his club ADO was organized the European Cup Baseball-tournament in 1994.
During that event, with others, he also handled the public relations for his club.
Unfortunately, in the past few years, Fred Reuling suffered health setbacks several times.
That resulted in many hospital-visits, examinations and several surgeries.
Despite that, Fred showed an enormous strength and always remained positive.
It was because of this attitude that his condition frequently bettered, enabling to return to the sports fields to continue to do what he loved to do, taking photos.
In April of this year, during the Opening Weekend of the regular baseball-season, Fred Reuling was at the games of Silicon Storks to take photos.
They were some of his final games.
Due to his health condition, Fred was unable to return to the fields in the following months.
Fred Reuling was much-liked, not only as a photographer, but also as a person.
His tremendously positive attitude and smile, despite his severe illness, was admirable.
He reported about his frequent hospital-visits (with photos) on his Facebook-page.
And he was a family-man, who spent as much time as possible with his son Mark, daughter-in-law Shylina and his grandchildren.
It was a memorable day on June 1 of this year, when Fred was able to attend their wedding.
Fred will be missed by many us.
The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to Fred's son Mark, daughter-in-law Shylina, his grandchildren and other family and friends and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.
(November 27)
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...A great photo by Fred Reuling taken during a big league-game of ADO... |
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