(Story & Photo by Marco Stoovelaar)
IN MEMORIAM
...Jan Esselman...
(1943 - 2024)
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
 Former KNBSB-administrator, Technical Commissioner and CEB-President Jan Esselman passed away
Nederlands
 HAARLEM (Neth.) -
Jan Esselman, who was a longtime baseball-administrator since the eighties and led the former European Baseball Confederation (CEB) as President, unexpectedly passed away early Monday-morning, October 28 at age 81.
The memorial service for Jan Esselman will be held on Monday, November 4 at 9:30 AM in the Aula of Crematorium Sterrenheuvel, located at the Vergierdeweg 458 in Haarlem.
After the memorial service, it is possible to offer condolences to the family in the lounge of the crematorium.
Jan Esselman was born on June 24, 1943 in Beemster.
From there, the Esselman-family moved to Amsterdam.
Jan later went on to live in Haarlem with his wife Joke.
It was in Haarlem that Jan Esselman became closely involved with baseball- and softball-club Haarlem Nicols.
There, he was a boardmember in 1985-1989, including being the club's vice-chairman, secretary and treasurer.
From October 1989 through August 1996, Jan Esselman was a member of the board of the Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Federation (KNBSB), being responsible for competition affairs for the baseball-section.
From April 1991 on, the KNBSB-board of which Esselman was a member of was chaired by Henk den Duijn, who unexpectedly passed away on September 16 at age 78.
For twenty years, Jan had been involved with the Technical Commission of the European Baseball Confederation (CEB).
In February 1993, he became a member of this commission, a few years later secretary, then was its chairman since March 2005, when he succeeded Italian Riccardo Fraccari, who is the President of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) since May 2014.
In 1994, Jan Esselman joined the Tournament Commission of the International BAseball Federation (IBAF), the predecessor the WBSC.
In his long assocation with these Commissions, Jan was active during many international tournaments worldwide, including the Olympic Games in 2000, 2004 and 2008, the World Baseball Classic in 2006, 2009 and 2013, plus several European Championships and World Championships.
Esselman left the Technical Commission in February 2013 when he was elected President of the CEB, succeeding Czech Petr Ditrich, who had been the interim-President since the year before after German Martin Miller had stepped down.
In February 2018, Jan Esselman received the CEB Xavier Mateu Award for Excellence for his many contributions to and developments of the sport of baseball in Europe and worldwide.
Besides his many (international) activities in baseball, Jan Esselman had another big passion, which was checkers.
He began playing that sport at a young age and participated in tournaments for more than sixty years since the late fifties.
The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to Jan's wife Joke, sons Danny and Jan Jr., daughters-in-law, grandchildren, other family and friends and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.
A more extended In Memoriam will be added later.
(October 31)
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