Category Archives: Newsletter

National coach Evert-Jan ‘t Hoen has announced the players with whom he will not only hunt for title prolongation at the Haarlem Baseball Week, but also hopes to earn back the A-status. The Kingdom team opens the week as early as Friday night at 7:30 p.m. with a game against young Team USA. This edition, […]

The introduction of the Pitch Clock is intended to shorten these pauses, making the games more dynamic and appealing to the audience. This not only speeds up the progress of the games, but also keeps the excitement and attention of the spectators. WHAT EXACTLY DOES THE PITCH CLOCK MEAN? The Pitch Clock is a timer […]

Fifth, we introduce the team that was the first to be committed for this Baseball Week Haarlem: Japan. The Japanese team has been a fixture at Baseball Week for many years. Since 1990, “Samurai Japan” missed only one edition, and in total the country closed the tournament as the overall winner four times (1978, ’92, […]

Until Corona threw a spanner in the works two years ago, Chinese Taipei had been a regular guest at Baseball Week since 2000. So it did not come as a big surprise that the Asians were also set as the second country ahead of the upcoming edition. What can we expect from the current number […]

That there is also a dark side to technological advances was evident when Major League Baseball was greatly embarrassed a few years ago by the Houston Astros’ sign stealing scandal. Indeed, the 2018 champion allegedly owed her success in part to cheating. So it has been up to the league since then to stay ahead […]

The third team in our round of proposals is Italy. That other European baseball superpower is participating in Baseball Week for the seventh time, but never managed to win the tournament. Indeed, the teams they trailed in those earlier participations can be counted on one hand. MIKE PIAZZA The big lookout for the Azzurri again […]

At part 1 of our triptych on The Future of Baseball we looked at new rules to make the sport more attractive. In this episode, we set our sights on an innovation designed to make sport more equitable, namely the Automated Ball-Strike System – ABS for short, but popularly called “robot umps” on a regular […]

After we introduced European champion Spain to you last week, it is now Team USA’s turn. The Americans come to Haarlem this edition with a slightly younger team than the previous edition. Get acquainted with the stars of the day after tomorrow. Two years ago, we were spoiled with a rock-solid American selection. Standouts of […]

The first team we would like to introduce is Baseball Week debutant Spain. So although these Southern Europeans are only traveling to Haarlem for the first time, thanks to their 15 bronze medals at the European Championships, you can legitimately say that they have been the best-of-the-rest behind the Netherlands and Italy since time immemorial. […]

The sport that is still sometimes affectionately called America’s National Pastime has been losing more and more ground to sports like American football, basketball and soccer for years. To turn the tide and make the sport faster, more spectacular and more surprising to a younger audience, several rule changes have been tested in recent years. […]