(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen & Marco Stoovelaar)
 Linda Steijger returns as Commissioner Official Scorers Baseball & Softball
Nederlands
 NIEUWEGEIN (Neth.) -
Linda Steijger is the new Commssioner for Official Scorers Baseball and Softball, the Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Association (KNBSB) announced on Thursday (April 2).
With that, Linda Steijger returns to this position, which she earlier held for fourteen years.
Effective April 1, Linda Steijger will head the Scorers Steering Committee and leads the scorers-corps as it Commissioner.
She succeeds Alex van den Berg, who stepped down in January after having led the Scoring Committee since 2018.
...Linda Steijger...
...Back as Commissioner...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
The postion of Umpire Commissioner in baseball and softball was introduced in 1990.
The function of Scoring Committee Chairman was changed to Commissioner in October 1997.
At that moment, Huub Nelissen led the Committee (since 1991).
He stepped down in July 2001 and shortly thereafter, Linda Steijger became the new Commissioner.
After having led the Scoring Committee for almost fourteen years, she stopped in October 2014.
Nelissen then returned as Commissioner through the end of 2017 and was succeeded by Alex van den Berg in early 2018.
Since 1966, eight persons have led the Scoring Committee.
Henk Knol was the first Chairman and led the Committee though 1971.
Hereafter, Theo Vleeshhouwer (1972-1984), Gert Snel (1985), Aart Wedemeijer (1986-1990), Huub Nelissen (1991-July 2001; 2015-2017), Linda Steijger (July 2001-2014; since April 1, 2020) and Alex van den Berg (2018-2019) led the group of scorers.
In 1984, Bert Daniëls shared the Chairman-duties with Vleeshhouwer.
The latter was responsible for baseball, while Daniëls was responsible for softball.
Since 1966, official scorers were only assigned for games in the highest baseball-league.
From 1977 on, official scorers are also assigned in the highest women's softball-league.
From that year on, the Scoring Committee handled both baseball and softball-affairs.
While not being a member of the Scoring Steering Committee, Bert Daniëls has been associated with the Scoring Committee for 36 years.
After his year as co-chairman in 1984, he was a committee-member in 1986-1994.
Since 1995, he handled secretarial duties for the committee, including during the annual scorers-meeting before the start of the season.
Besides Linda Steijger, Marco Stoovelaar also returns to the Scoring Steering Committee, which from this year on is the new name for the Scoring Committee.
From 1988-2014, Stoovelaar was a member of the committee for 27 years.
With that, he is the third-longest member of the committee since 1966.
The list is headed by Bert Daniëls (36 years) and Wim van Sorge (33½ years).
Before this year, Stoovelaar shared third placed with Piet de Goede (27 years).
Other longtime committee-members are Huub Nelissen (21 years), Jan van der Sande (21 years), Henk Knol (20 years), Linda Steijger (18 years), Theo Vleeshhouwer (18 years) and Harry Wedemeijer (16 years).
...Marco Stoovelaar as Official Scorer...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Besides Linda Steijger and Marco Stoovelaar, the other members of the Scoring Steering Committee are Dennis Duin and Stefan Slinger.
Duin became a committee-member in 2008, Slinger in 2015.
Linda Steijger is Official Scorer since 1998, Stoovelaar made his scoring-debut in 1977, Duin in 2006 and Slinger in 2008.
All four are also International Scorer for the WBSC.
During the annual weekend for Game Officials in February, almost the entire group of Official Scorers nominated Linda Steijger als their candidate for the vacant position of Commissioner.
With that, she accepted to be a candidate for the position.
With the naming of Linda Steijger as new Commissioner, the Committee for Game Officials also is complete again.
Linda Steijger is an Official Scorer since 1998.
Since then, she has been very active in the development of scoring, conducted scoring courses, (re)-wrote scoring scourses and translated scoring rules for both the European as well the World Federation.
Since 2002, she is a member of the Scoring Work Group, later the Scoring Commission of the European Baseball Confederation (CEB) of which she became the Chairman in 2017.
She also is a member of the Scoring Commission of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) since 2017.
Linda Steijger made her international scoring debut in 2001.
Besides being assigned for several international tournaments in the Netherlands, amongst her tournaments as Official Scorer abroad are the European Baseball Championship in 2007 (Spain) and 2019 (Germany), the Olympic Games in 2008 (China), the World Baseball Championship in 2009 (Europe) and 2011 (Panama), the Premier12 Baseball in 2015 (Taiwan/Japan) and the World Junior Baseball Championship in 2017 (Canada).
Amongst her tournaments as Scoring Director were the World Under-21 Baseball Championship in 2013 (Taiwan), the World Women's Softball Championship in 2014 (Netherlands), the European Women's Softball Championship in 2015 (Netherlands), the European Baseball Championship in 2016 (Netherlands), the World Women's Baseball Championship in 2018 (USA), the Super 6 Baseball Softball in 2018 (Netherlands) and the Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifying Tournament Softball in 2019 (Netherlands).
Last November, Linda Steijger was named WBSC Scorer of the Year for 2018.
For this year, Linda Steijger was assigned as Scoring Director for the softball-tournament at the Olympic Games in Japan.
However, on March 24, the Olympic Games were postponed to next year.
(April 2)
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