DutchUmp

Hi and thanks for the welcome To start off ill write a bit about baseball in the Netherlands. Over here there is no pro-ball, just strictly amateur. Even though there are a few players in our Major League that collect some nice expenses, it's not enough to give up your daytime job. Below the ML are 6 levels of league play, 6th till 1st division, and there is a rookie league which is in essence the instructional league for the ML teams. Every ML team also has a rookie team. Level of play in the rookie league is comparable to 1st division. ML itself can be compared with A/AA level at most. Our national team is made up of partly dutch ML players, and overseas players, who mostly play in the MiLB and come from the Dutch Antilles. The recent WBC shows we can play ball if needed There are also several jouth leagues, bracketed from very young (ages 5 to 9) up to Juniors bracket which is 16-21. After that its adult leagues which I described above. We play the game following MLB rules, with one general exception which is that we have a 10-run mercy rule at the end of the 7th inning. Everybody plays under the same federation/association, which is the KNBSB which stands for Dutch Royal Base and Softball Union. Federation umpires are only assigned to ML, 1st , Rookie, 2nd and if there are any leftovers, 3rd division. Below that clubs have to arrange for their own umpires. We do get paid per game , and receive gas money. We work all games with the 2-man system, ML uses 3. We don't have fixed crews, and you know who your partner is a week or two in advance. The number of people that play base/softball in the Netherlands is not that large, around 180 clubs with a total of around 30000 members, out of a population of 16 Million. Even though its not that big of a sport, we do have quite a few dutch players in the real Major Leagues at the moment, and also in the MiLB working their way up. We have 2 "big" (read 2500 seats) stadiums in the Netherlands, and a few "enhanced" fields. With enhanced I mean outfitted to host international games. Working in the stadiums is fun, and we have one in Rotterdam and one in Haarlem. Rotterdam houses Neptunus, and Haarlem is the new home of Kinheim. Both stadiums host the World Port Tournament, or the Haarlem Honkbalweek on alternating years. This year it's Rotterdam again. Very nice tournaments where teams like Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Cuba and also the US shows up. This year the Netherlands hosts the 2nd round of the World Championships on several fields around the nation. Speaking about the nation; I work games all across the country. As it's only small , (2 hours in a car will get you basically anywhere from here I live, smack in the center), it's nothing compared travelwise that US umpires have to do to get to their games. So that's pretty much dutch baseball in a nutshell If you have any more questions i'll be happy to answer them. Regards, Martijn

Hi all, Martijn here from the Netherlands. 35 years old and an umpire for the dutch federation. Strictly amateur league over here in the land of windmills, cheese and wooden shoes (no, use NB's as plateshoes B) ). Been lurking for a while, and decided to sign up. I attended the Jim Evans Academy 5 week professional course last january to get myself towards my goal of working in the Dutch Major League (about AA level compared to MiLB) . Currently in my 2nd federation year and work up to and including the 1st division which is one level below our ML. If I make it to the dutch ML, the next step would be getting on the international list, but one step at a time Already had my promo to the 1st division way sooner than I expected. I'm not that green however as I've been umpiring for about 20 years on local club level while I was also playing. An arm injury made me decide to stop playing 2 years ago and going full-time ump, also motivated and supported by the commissioner of the federation who invited me to our level 3 course 2 years ago. Thats a course on invitation only , for umps with several years of experience, so he must think I must have some talent I enjoy umpiring very much, as I love the game of baseball, and after playing it for 25 years I think it's time to give something back to the game. Umpiring is also a form of stress-relief for me (sounds weird probably) but it completely takes my mind form my rather stressfull job in software sales, working for an american company with pretty heavy targets and workload. Love it, dont get me wrong, but you need a good work-life balance, and baseball keeps it all evened out. I look foward to picking stuff up here which I can use to improve my umpiring skills, and ill try and share my experiences here as much as possible. I must admit i'm more of a lurker, so dont expect long epic stories, but Ill do my best. If you're interested in my adventures at JEAPU, I kept a diary on www.bosschaart.net , with a rather large collection of pictures aswell. Best regards, Martijn