IN MEMORIAM ...Judith de Heide... (1962 - 2026) (© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar)

Former Neptunus Team Scorer and club-contributor Judith de Heide passed away
Nederlands

ROTTERDAM (Neth.) - Judith de Heide, who was a longtime colorful club-contributor and fan of Neptunus, unfortunately has passed away unexpectedly recently at the much too young age of 63 in her home-town Rotterdam. Through 2024, Judith had been the Team Scorer of the Dutch big league-team for eleven seasons.

The memorial-ceremony for Judith de Heide will be held on Wednesday, April 15 at 2:45 PM at the Algemene Begraafplaats Crooswijk, located at Kerkhoflaan 1 in Rotterdam.

Judith Esther de Heide was born on September 13, 1962 in Rotterdam. In her home-town, Judith initially was active at Sparta, where she also briefly played softball. And where she was a frequent spectator at the home-games of the main baseball-team of the club. Amongst the players then was legendary outfielder Hamilton Richardson, who passed away in January. It also was at Sparta that Judith developed an interest in scorekeeping, which she started to do regularly for several teams of the club.

Somewhere in the eighties, Judith decided to switch to Neptunus, where she quickly became involved in several activities. And became a loyal fan of the main baseball-team of Neptunus, which from halfway the nineties went on to become the most successful Dutch team, capturing a record 20 Championship-titles via the Holland Series.

In her early years at Neptunus, Judith became the Scoreboard Operator, sitting besides longtime Public Address Announcer Karin van Aalen and the Official Scorer in the scorebox. And she kept on scoring the games of the Neptunus-team, with whom she also traveled to away-games.

Judith also was one of the Scoreboard Operators during the first editons of the international World Port Tournament in 1985, 1987, 1989 and 1991. Another Scoreboard Operator was Lex Looijen, who was closely involved in the development of the scoreboards at the Neptunus-site. In the eighties, he gave advice and was involved when a new electronic scoreboard was installed behind the leftfield-fence when the World Port Tournament was first organized at the site of Neptunus. From that moment on, Lex worked on improvements on the scoreboard. From somewhere in the nineties, when the new (current) stadium was built a new scoreboard was installed. That scoreboard was fully computerized and it was Lex who developed the lay-out and made several additions. And he developed software to show more information for the spectators. Lex, who passed away in 2022, later succeeded Judith as Scoreboard Operator at the home-games of Neptunus and during the World Port Tournament when the new scoreboard was installed.

Although she no longer was active in the scorebox, Judith continued following and scoring games of the Neptunus-team. As she was with the team both home and away, Judith became a wellknown and colorful personality.

She was known by players and coaches (of course especially those from Neptunus), but also by many umpires and official scorers. Gaining a lot of knowledge of scorekeeping through the years, Judith even thought of becoming an Official Scorer several years ago. But she decided to keep on following the Neptunus-team, often sitting near the dug-out. Some years ago, she created her own 'terrace' near the first base-entrance, besides the dug-out. Sitting behind her table, Judith greeted and chatted with the umpires when they entered the field. Several times, the umpires left the key of their locker-room at Judith's table.

...Judith looks on from her 'terrace' during 2023 season... (© Photo: Robert Bos)

Also at her table, for many years Judith had small bags of candies she had bought specially, mixed and handed out to several players, umpires and scorers, knowing exactly what candies they liked and didn't like. She stopped doing that a few years ago when it simply became to expensive toy buy the candies.

After the 2012 season, longtime Neptunus Team Scorer and Team Manager Jan van der Sande stopped with these ctivities. Initially, there was no Team Scorer in 2013, but from 2014 on, Judith took care of the scoring from her 'terrace'. After getting the starting line-up, she filled in the line-up forms, made copies, handed them to the opponent, the Official Scorers and the Announcer and left enough copies in the dug-out, including one for the Head Coach to hand out to the Home Plate Umpire.

Judith also did some other duties. For several years, she made sure that there were drinks in the locker-rooms of the teams and umpires after the game. And she regularly assisted in cleaning up the locker-rooms and clubhouse.

Through the years, Judith always traveled to away-games in the team-bus. When Neptunus stopped traveling by bus, she traveled to away-games by train, often arriving at the site hours before game-time. Judith stopped with her activities during the 2024 season. She calculated that she had scored some 1,200 games since her days at Sparta.

When not on the field, Judith very much liked reading books (thrillers) or watching DVD's of science fiction-series or movies, with the Star Trek-series being her favorites. She was a regular visitor of a library near her home to pick up new books or DVD's or to check out some of her favorite websites. While being on a playing-site, Judith liked to eat a hamburger, but off the field, she was a frequent of a Japanese sushi-restaurant in recent years near her home.

Judith was a colorful person, who often voiced her opinion about everything. Including her own club, but she also made it clear that Neptunus was the best team in the league. Judith was known by many and will surely be missed.

The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to Judith's family and friends and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.

(April 14)