September 11, 2014

Translation error set back Dutch baseball a few decades

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 11:02 am

For almost half a century the Dutch were pitching baseballs incorrectly due to a translation error of the rules from American English into Dutch. Adults were pitching as soft as small boys and that was not to their advantage.

A Dutch book entitled ‘Sportlegendes’ (‘Sport legends’) has a chapter on baseball player Han Urbanus from Amsterdam who travelled to play with the New York Giants in 1952, the first European to do so, although he only trained with them.

The Americans watched Urbanus throw and didn’t understand what he was doing. The strictly interpreted Dutch rules Urbanus played by said that the pitcher ‘needs to keep contact with the rubber on the mound and may not lift their support leg until the ball is thrown’. Lifting a foot while pitching comes naturally, which normal in the US, but not in the Netherlands, and meant a ball speed loss of some 40 km/h.

Back then there was no real way of knowing this besides reading the rules or seeing it live and maybe catch some TV in the US and Canada. Urbanus had to learn how to throw all over again, although he said that after two weeks, he had it figured out. The Giants gave him some rolls of films to show his team back home how the game was played.

Tomorrow the Dutch will be playing in the 2014 European Baseball Championship held in the Czech Republic and are a big favourite to win. They were last tournament’s winner as well as having won the World Cup back in 2011.

(Link: nieuws.thepostonline.nl, Photo by John Martinez Pavliga, some rights reserved)

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December 28, 2011

Orangemaster’s favourite stories of 2011

Filed under: Bicycles,General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 5:33 pm

Another year of posting is coming to an end and it’s time to pick our favourite stories of 2011.

We had a lot of stories about cycling and bicycles which were retweeted by many people (thanks!), encouraging us to make a category for them, and a lot of stories about discriminatory and absurd laws and situations. Oh, and some sports news.

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October 16, 2011

Netherlands wins first ever baseball world cup

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Branko Collin @ 6:04 pm

The Dutch baseball team won the world cup in Panama last night.

Radio Netherlands reports:

The Netherlands baseball team has made history winning the World Cup final in Panama after beating Cuba 2-1. It is the first time a European team has won the title since Britain did in 1938.

The Dutch players and team staff celebrated their victory in the Rod Carew stadium in Panama City with dozens of fans. The Dutch embassy and consulate had invited some 200 people to witness the historic duel, team manager Tjerk Smeets said. An hour after the end of the game, he said, all the champagne was long gone, but they were still on the pitch celebrating with all the fans.

Edith Schippers, minister of Health, Welfare and Sport said according to De Stentor: “The baseball team added a golden chapter to the history of Dutch sports. This was a unique performance, both physically and mentally. If you manage to beat baseball super power Cuba twice in two days, you really are the best of the best. Baseball is just a small sport in the Netherlands, which is why this performance is truly impressive.”

Queen Beatrix has sent a telegram to the Dutch team congratulating them.

Algemeen Dagblad wrote that play was delayed because of rain: “The Oranje had Rob Cordemans on the mound. The almost-37-year-old from Schiedam has been a member of the team since 1995, but the highlight of his career was last Saturday. The Dutchman sent Cuban after Cuban packing with three strikes. […] He experienced troubles for the first time in the fourth inning when Frederich Cepeda reached third base.”

Cepeda would score 0-1. Sidney de Jong drew the Dutch alongside after a strike from Bryan Engelhardt, and Johan Schoop let Curt Smith score. Smith (25) was declared the most valuable player of the tournament by the International Baseball Federation, IBAF.

(Photo by John Martinez Pavliga, some rights reserved)

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May 23, 2010

Richest self-made men and women of 2010

Filed under: General,Sports by Branko Collin @ 3:17 pm

Glossy money magazine Quote presented its 100% Selfmade list last week, an overview of the 100 richest self-made Dutch people of under the age of 40.

The Top 5 is:

  1. David Slager (37), 270 million euro, stock trader
  2. Reinout Oerlemans (38), 73 million euro, TV director and producer
  3. Roger Hodenius (38), 60 million euro, stock trader
  4. Andruw Jones (33), 54 million euro, professional baseball player
  5. Ruud van Nistelrooij (33), 53 million euro, professional football player

Quote regularly publishes a list of the 500 richest people of the Netherlands, including those who inherited their fortunes, and the difference with the self-made folks is stunning. The latter only lost half a million euro per capita in the past 12 months, whereas all the rich combined lost 17.8 billion, which comes down to 36 million euro per person.

In fact, only the losses of one man, Maasbert Schouten (banker, 38), who saw 200 million of his 235 million euro evaporate last year, stunted the growth of the self-made rich. Collectively they went from 2 billion euro to 1.95 billion euro.

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