(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Stadsarchief Breda/Dagblad De Stem, provided by Léon Krijnen)
IN MEMORIAM
...Xaveer Obbens...
(1942 - 2023)
(© Ph: Stadsarchief Breda/Dagblad De Stem) |
 Xaveer Obbens, baseball-pioneer in Breda and club-icon of Jeka, passed away
Nederlands
 BREDA (Neth.) -
Xaveer Obbens, who was a club-icon of Breda-based baseball- and softball-club Jeka, passed away on Saturday, December 9 at age 81.
He had been very involved in all kind of activities for this club for over 30 years as a player, coach and administrator.
Besides that, Xaveer Obbens also served in several committees for both the Dutch Federation, as well as what then was called Rayon West-Brabant.
For his many contributions, as well as his pioneering role in Breda, Obbens was named Member of Merit of Rayon Het Zuiden (South).
In early 1997, he retired from most of his activities at Jeka.
Shortly thereafter, Obbens was decorated by the Dutch Federation and was named Honorary Member of Jeka.
But in following years, he remained a loyal follower of his club.
Franciscus Xaverius (Xaveer) Obbens was born on July 19, 1942 in Katwijk aan Zee.
After growing up there and in Haarlem, the Obbens-family, which also included Xaveer's sister Marie-Annette and his brothers Joost-Jan, Jeroen, Vincent, Cyriel and Radboud, moved to Breda in the southern province of North Brabant in the late fifties when Xaveer was sixteen years old.
In Breda, he began to play soccer and baseball.
From the early fifties, baseball started to grow in Noord-Brabant, especially in the city of Tilburg.
In the decade of the fifties, there were ten different clubs in Tilburg.
From 1959 onwards, the city had six local clubs and even had its own youth-league.
When the Obbens-family arrived in Noord-Brabant in the late fifties, there were some fourteen baseball-clubs in this province.
Six of them were located in Tilburg, being Blue Lions, Forward-Hitters, The Giants, J.P.S., Odulphus and Pacifico.
Forward-Hitters and The Giants had joined in 1959, the others were founded some years earlier.
Odulphus became known for having a very talented lefthanded pitcher.
He later went on to play in the Dutch big league for Rotterdam-based Sparta, played in the Orange-team and became the first director of the Head Office of the Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Association (KNBSB).
His name is Ben de Brouwer, who unfortunately passed away in 1996 in a car-crash at the far too young age of 47.
Another club that also developed several talented young players in these years was Eindhoven-based P.S.V..
It was in the fifties that some of these clubs all had their own very active persons, who all can be labeled baseball-pioneers, not only for their club or their city, but in the province of Noord-Brabant in general.
Amongst them were Leo Denteneer (BaVoB, which later became Ducks, Boxtel), Jan van Lierop (Longa, Tilburg), Frans van der Broek, Joop Maalsté (both Pacifico, Tilburg), Jacques Neutkens (H.U.A.C., Helmond) and Jan Sibille (P.S.V., Eindhoven).
On behalf of the Dutch Federation, these clubs were governed by what then was called Rayon Noord-Brabant, chaired by Sibille, while Maalsté and Denteneer also were amongst the administrators.
As mentioned, there were fourteen clubs back then in Noord-Brabant.
Besides the six in Tilburg, the others were located in Aalst, Boxtel, Den Bosch, Eindhoven, Geldrop and Helmond.
One was located in Breda, however, that was not really a club like the others.
This club, Velocitas-K.M.A., was a section of the Royal Military Academy (Koninklijke Militaire Academie), the service academy where officers are trained for the Royal Dutch Army, Royal Dutch Air Force and the Royal Marechaussee, which was founded in 1828 and since then has been located in Breda.
Teams were compiled from cadets at the Academy and only a few games were played annually.
...Xaveer Obbens (standing 3rd from right) as player of Jeka...
...Standing 2nd from left is Charles van der Meijs...
...Xaveer and Charles have a long Jeka-history together...
(© Photo: Team-photo Jeka) |
Growing up in Haarlem, Xaveer Obbens had become acquainted with baseball, which was played by many clubs and in schools there.
It was time for a real baseball-club in Breda and the name of that club couldn't be more clear, as on April 1, 1959, E.B.H.C was founded, with the abbreviation standing for First Breda Baseball Club (Eerste Bredase Honkbal Club).
From 1959 on, Xaveer immediately was one of its first players.
Despite his young age, Xaveer quickly became very active for this first real Breda-based baseball-club, as did the rest of the family.
All his brothers also went on to play played baseball at E.B.H.C., father Obbens acted as driver to bring players to the field and mother Obbens did the laundry for some players and always brought many sandwiches to the field.
Xaveer's sister Marie-Annette's interests in baseball and softball came later when her own children started to play.
Another pioneering member at E.B.H.C. (and later also Jeka) was Cor Slijk, who later became the longtime treasurer the so-called Rayon Noord-Brabant.
In his early seasons, Xaveer Obbens also played as pitcher, but wasn't always that successful, as can be read in a game-recap in the Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant-newspaper in June 1960.
As a 17-year old, Obbens was the pitcher for E.B.H.C. in a game against The Giants from Tilburg.
Obbens walked 25 batters and E.B.H.C. lost 32-7.
In June 1960, Breda-based soccer-club Jeka founded a baseball-section.
It was at Jeka where Xaveer Obbens played soccer and one of his teammates there was Charles van der Meijs, who also played a pioneering role in the development of baseball in Breda, as well as in Noord-Brabant.
Later, both also were baseball-teammates.
In October 1961, a fourth baseball-club was founded in Breda, being Breda Red Sox, which mostly played as B.R.S..
However, this club was dissolved after the 1963 season.
Velocitas then also stopped playing.
And so, from 1964 on, Breda had two baseball-clubs, E.B.H.C and Jeka.
By the way, Jeka is always written as a word, but actually also is an abbreviation, which stands for 'Youthful Enthusiasm Can do Anything' (Jeugdig Enthousiasme Kan Alles).
In its early years, E.B.H.C. played its home-games at different sites.
From 1965, the club moved to a site at the Brabantpark, which was located behind the St. Ignatius Hospital, which up to then had been the home-site of Jeka in its first years.
Soccer-club Jeka moved to the Municipal Sports Complex at the Molengracht, where its baseball-team also went on to play its home-games.
However, E.B.H.C. more or less stopped playing regularly from 1967 on.
In 1971, E.B.H.C. merged with Jeka, which remained the name of the new club.
Jeka continued playing at the Molengracht through 1989, before moving to its current site, which is not that far from its former location.
...Rudi Dom at Jeka...
(© Photo: Team-photo Jeka) |
At E.B.H.C., Xaveer Obbens had been very active from the beginning, as he handled the game-administration (scheduling, team-assignments, etc.) for some time in the early years of the club, besides being a player.
By the way, Charles van der Meijs did the same in those years at Jeka.
Thanks to the stimulating and promotional activities by Obbens (and others), new clubs were founded, including Twins in Oosterhout, where Obbens also played an important role.
After having played baseball for some years at E.B.H.C., Xaveer Obbens moved to Jeka, where he already played soccer.
Xaveer's brothers Radboud and Vincent also tranfered to Jeka, while Joost-Jan also became active there.
With that, Xaveer also became a baseball-teammate of Charles van der Meijs, with whom he already played soccer at the same club.
At Jeka, Xaveer Obbens kept on playing baseball through the seventies, mostly as lefthanded first baseman.
Later, he also became of the coaches.
Amongst his teammates at Jeka were Jan Henk van Berkel, Fred Blauw, Bert de Bont, Loek Brugman, Joop van Herp, Léon Krijnen and the already mentioned Charles van der Meijs.
Halfway the seventies, former National Team-pitcher and big league-player Rudi Dom played for Jeka.
Dom played in the highest league for Storks and Sparta, before joining Jeka in after the 1975 season.
In 1967, Jeka made its debut in the Third Division.
In this year, Obbens, Van der Meijs (who was a pitcher) and Brugman (catcher) represented Breda in a so-called city-team, which was compiled only of players of Jeka, as E.B.H.C. had no longer a representative team.
At the site of Jeka, the Breda-team played against city-teams of Eindhoven and Tilburg.
The Eindhoven-team was mostly compiled of players from PSV, including National Team-pitcher Ferry de Clercq.
Playing (and pitching) for Tilburg was the already mentioned Ben de Brouwer, who then played for R.K.H.S.C. Tilburg, which had promoted to the First Division.
Through the years, the baseball-team of Jeka mostly played in the First or Second Division.
As mentioned, Xaveer Obbens also played a stimulating role at Twins, where Jos Peters also was a driving force.
However, through the years, Jeka and Twins were rivals of each other.
By the way, in the early eighties, Obbens was one of the two coaches of the Twins baseball-team.
The other was Wout Isbouts, who later became a driving force at Gryphons at Rosmalen, where he served as softball-coach for several seasons, including some of them in the highest league.
At the moment, Isbouts is a technical commissioner for international softball-tournaments for WBSC Europe.
...Xaveer Obbens as coach of Twins in 1982...
...Sitting at left is fellow-coach Wout Isbouts...
...In the middle is American pitcher Todd Curtis...
(© Photo: Stadsarchief Breda/Dagblad De Stem) |
As the number of clubs in Noord-Brabant grew, the Rayon Noord-Brabant was split in 1970, becoming the Rayon Oost-Brabant and Rayon West-Brabant.
Shortly thereafter, Limburg was added to Oost-Brabant and Zeeland was added to West-Brabant.
From the early seventies, Xaveer's organizational and administrative skills were also noticed outside Jeka.
In 1970, he was a member of the publicy committee of Rayon West-Brabant, together with Jos Peters and in 1973, he was a member of the technical committee of what then was Rayon West-Brabant/Zeeland.
Also in 1973, Obbens was a coach of a representative youth-team of the Rayon with Peters handling the administration.
Obbens and Peters continued to work together for many years.
Coincidentally, Jos Peters passed away just over a year ago, on December 2 last year.
From 1978 on, Obbens and Peters again closely worked together.
In that year, Jos Peters was chairman of the board of Rayon West-Brabant, while Xaveer Obbens was a member of the board.
Other boardmembers then were Tonny van der Wouw as secretary, Cor Slijk as treasurer and Henk Ebbing as member.
The five of them lead the Rayon through 1981.
And they represent the two most active clubs of that time.
Obbens, Slijk and Ebbing are members of Jeka, Peters and Mrs. Van de Wouw are members of Twins.
In 1980, they are joined by Hans Bakker and Cees Kolderie, who respectively are member of HSC Tilburg and Alligators.
League-commissioner back then was Bill van der Aa, who made schedules and handled competitions for more than 25 years in this Rayon.
Xaveer Obbens always had focused his attention to youth-development.
In the same period (1978-1981), he is the chairman of the youth-committee of the Rayon and is later joined by Charles van der Meijs.
In 1981, Obbens also is a member of the youth-committee of Rayon Oost-Brabant/Limburg.
After the 1981 season, the Rayons West-Brabant and Oost-Brabant merge to become the new Rayon Het Zuiden (South).
Jos Peters, Tonny van der Wouw and Xaveer Obbens step down as boardmembers and are named Member of Merit.
The new Rayon is chaired by Nico van der Vlugt, who already had been active for many years in Rayon Oost-Brabant.
Cor Slijk, who had been the treasurer for both Rayons, returns in the new Rayon-board.
He would handle the financial affairs for 27 years.
However, Xaveer Obbens returned in another function in 1982 and 1983 in Rayon Het Zuiden.
As he was the treasurer of Jeka, Obbens knew how to handle financial affairs.
And so, in 1982 and 1983, he was a member of the cash audit committee, alongside Tonny van der Wouw, Hans Bakker and Harry Schotte.
It was also in these years that Obbens was one of the coaches at Twins.
Earlier, in 1977, Xander already had served in the same committee, but then for Rayon West-Brabant.
...Xaveer in 1997 when he retired from...
...most of his activities at Jeka...
(© Photo: Stadsarchief Breda/Dagblad De Stem/
Johan van Gurp) |
Besides his activities at the Rayon-level, Xaveer Obbens also was a member of the national competitions committee of the KNBSB for eleven years.
When he joined the committee in 1979, it was chaired by Ronald Boot, who then also was a member of KNBSB-board, handling competition affairs.
Obbens was a committee-member alongside, Chris Mast, Jan-Willem van der Horst and Bram Klijnsmit.
Van der Horst was the longtime league-commissisoner in those years.
In 1980, Obbens succeeded Mast as secretary of the committee and remained so through 1989.
In 1982, Rob Hoogkamer succeeded Boot as chairman.
Hoogkamer then also was a member of the KNBSB-board as well a being chairman of the new baseball-section.
In his eleven years in this committee, Obbens closely worked together with Van der Horst.
In 1985, Boot returned to the committee as the successor of Klijnsmit.
After handing over the secretary-position to Obbens, Chris Mast would stay on as committee-member for five years.
He was then succeeded by Joop Maalsté in 1985.
In the same year, Lex Rimini was added as sixth member.
Xaveer Obbens continued playing baseball and soccer at Jeka through the seventies, in later years at a lower level.
As mentioned, he also became one of the coaches, but he also served as treasurer and was the longtime game/competition-secretary of the club.
In 1973, Xaveer began handling all administrative affairs that surrounded the games played by the teams of Jeka, which also had started a softball-section in the sixties.
Xaveer became the so-called game or competition-secretary of the club for both the baseball- and softball-section.
Since 1973, Xaveer served in this function through 1996, except for 1992-1994 when he 'only' handled baseball and men-softball.
But in 1995 and 1996, he also looked over the women's softball-section again.
By the way, Xaveer's wife Anja also was very active for the club since the sixties.
Like Xaveer, she also was a driving force of the club.
In the seventies and eighties, she handled the peanutball-section.
In 1975-1978, Xaveer Obbens also was the club's general secretary, before being succeeded by John Michielsen, who also was his baseball-teammate.
When Xaveer took over the secretary, he succeeded the father of Léon Krijnen, who in his turn had succeeded Charles van der Meijs.
As mentioned, Krijnen and Van der Meijs were also baseball-teammates of Xaveer and later, both would go on to cover baseball and softball for Dagblad De Stem-newspaper.
Krijnen also played in the big league baseball for OVVO and Amstel Tijgers, while Van der Meijs also became a member of the board of the KNBSB.
From 1981, Greetje Manders became the longtime club-secretary of Jeka.
Early 1997, Xaveer Obbens announced he would stop with most of his club-activities after having been active in Breda-baseball for 38 years.
He was then named Honorary Member of Jeka.
Jan Lensselink, chairman of what then was District Zuid, decorated Obbens on behalf of the KNBSB for his many contributions to the development of baseball in Noord-Brabant.
However, Xaveer of course remained involved in the activities at Jeka.
For instance, from 1997 on, now no longer active as the game-secretary, Xaveer was the club's consul for some years.
As such, he was the contact-person of Jeka for other clubs, as well as umpires, in case of questions whether or not a game could be played due to weather-conditions.
...One of Léon Krijnen's favorite photos...
...On July 9, 1978, Xaveer Obbens is greeted after hitting...
...a walk-off homerun for Jeka against Twins...
(© Photo: Stadsarchief Breda/Dagblad De Stem/Johan van Gurp) |
In his In Memoriam on his website, former teammate Léon Krijnen wrote:
,,Xaveer was the indispensable competition-secretary, who, based on the Association's schedules, puzzled together line-ups, starting times, umpires and available fields, and also assigned the drivers for the road-games.
He ensured that there were enough balls and bats, body protectors, shin guards, keys and drink vouchers for the umpires.
Tournaments and trainingcamps, mix and veterans, when Xaveer had arranged it, then it was arranged, down to the last detail.
He had a prodigious memory: he knew all the telephone numbers, of clubs and secretaries, of players and umpires, by heart.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the weekly reports and the club magazine were written and mimeographed every Sunday evening in his attic.
Xaveer got up with Jeka, and went to bed with Jeka.
He had a great sense of humor and enjoyed a good gossip from time to time.''
Krijnen, who also is a longtime contributor at Jeka, continues:
,,My favorite photo of Xaveer is the one in which he is festively welcomed on the rolled-out red carpet at home plate.
It's Sunday, July 9, 1978, and he has just hit the game-winning home run.
Also against our favorite enemies, Twins.
We have long since forgiven him for the fact that he was also a trainer-coach there for a few seasons from 1982 onwards.
Beautiful, that photo with those Oosterhout-heads as a thunderstorm.
Even better was that home run against NADO, off that equally good and arrogant pitcher, who everyone hated.
We promoted to the First Division, playing in Rotterdam, in the lion's den, in the best way imaginable.
In the ninth inning of the last game of a long season.
With two men out, two runs behind, two bases occupied, at a full count, two strikes and three balls, Xaveer hits that far, legendary homerun.
Game over, champion and promoted.''
Xaveer Obbens loved to laugh and having fun.
And being around his many baseball- and softball-friends and acquaintances at the site of Jeka.
His Jeka.
The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to Xaveer's wife Anja, daughter Monique, other family and friends and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.
(December 22)
(A word of thanks to Xaveer's sister Marie-Annette for additional information and to Léon Krijnen for giving permission for the usage of the photos and also some additional information)
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