In the second round of the 2024 Belgian Division 1, a no-hitter was thrown by Jackson Longhofer of the Brasschaat Braves. In seven innings, he kept the Merchtem Cats on a leash and led his team to a 16-0 victory. Jackson Lonhofer, no-hitter. Even though the Cats were kept hitless, the game was close until the fourth inning. In that frame, the Brasschaat Braves scored four runs, which led to a 5-0 lead. In the following two innings, the Braves scored six and five runs respectively.  Despite striking out just six, Longhofer managed to keep Merchtem hitless thanks to a strong defensive perf ..read more

Through Instagram, the Borgerhout Squirrels announced it has signed a Japanese pitcher for the 2024 season. Yoshitaka Nanmoku will join the four-time Belgian champions. The Japanese pitcher played for several teams in Japan and for the München Caribes of the 2. Baseball Bundesliga in Germany. Nanmoku played for the latter in 2023. During the 2023 season, he was flat-out dominating as he posted a 1.75 ERA, earned fourteen wins, lost only three games, started seventeen games and completed sixteen. So not only did he dominate the league, he was also a workhorse. Nanmoku pitched 113 innings, a ..read more

Rumors floated around for a while, but today it became official. The European Champions Cup is no more. It will be replaced by the BECC (Baseball European Champions Cup). The biggest change is the countries that are represented. For decades, champions (and runners up) from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands played for the title of European champion. But in the past years, it became more and more costly to play in this tournament. Last year, the Italian champions and runner up (San Marino and Fortitudo Bologna) withdrew and Italy was represented by Parmaclima. Appa ..read more

Through its website and social media channels, multiple Italian champions Fortitudo Bologna announced it has signed Curaçao-born Junior Martina for the 2024 season. The twenty-six-year-old Martina has three seasons of affiliated ball, one season of Indy ball and three seasons in the Dutch hoofdklasse under his belt. After one season with DSS in Haarlem (2018), Martina moved to the USA to play for the Washington Nationals organization (Auburn Doubledays and the Gulf Coast Nationals). After returning to the Dutch Leagues with Oosterhout Twins in 2020, he returned to the US to join the Wilmingto ..read more

It has been a while. But it is Friday once again. Time to celebrate the upcoming weekend. Time for Peanuts Baseball Comic on Friday. Enjoy and have a nice weekend ..read more

A surprising move in Italian baseball. Five days ago, Hotsand Macerata announced it has signed former Dutch National team player and former Dutch hoofdklasse player Dudley Leonora for the 2024 season. On their Facebook page, the Macerata Angels posted the following announcement: “We welcome another great player to join Hotsand Macerata this year. Dudley Leonora, who has come from San Marino for two seasons, will be included in the Macerates roster this year. Born in Sint Maarten, a constitutional nation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands and the Caribbean states of ..read more

On March 6 and 7, a selection of European baseball players will take on team Samurai Japan in Osaka. Today, the roster of the European team was announced. The European team will contain players from Spain (eight players), Germany (three players), Czech Republic (four players), Italy (six), and the Netherlands (seven). The roster will look as follows: PITCHERS (14) Daniel Alvarez, Fernando Baez, Rhiner Cruz (Spain); Matteo Bocchi, Tiago Da Silva, Luis Lugo (Italy); Tom De Blok, Lars Hujer, Kevin Kelly, Franklyn Van Gurp (Netherlands); Martin Schneider (Czech Republic); Sven Schueller, Marcu ..read more

In the blog post about the transactions of the Merchtem Cats for the 2024 season, it was mentioned that two import players would be added to their roster. The Dutch Baseball Hangout was informed about the two additions today. The two import players are Isaac Blake and Zane Gilpin. Both were found on baseballjobsoverseas. Isaac Blake Isaac Blake is a pitcher, who can be used as a starter or as a closer. He can also be used as a utility player. During his college days, he played for the Lewis and Clark Pioneers (NCAA Division III) from Portland, Oregon. In 2019, he had ten appearances in which h ..read more

On December 15, 2023, the transaction period in Belgian baseball ended. We have reached the final chapter of the Division One teams. Today we pay attention to the Merchtem Cats. Six players will not return to the Merchtem Cats as players. Tom Beeckmans will head to Brasschaat Braves. Domantas Trinkunas will join Borgerhout Squirrels, Jayde Thorne will skip the 2024 season, just to be away from the game. Phil Whelan will not return. He will play in Japan in 2024. Clement Dupuis and Bart Saerens will hang up their spikes. Bart Saerens will become the new headcoach after Kris Beeckmans has deci ..read more

In this episode of “Baseball Related Songs” we pay attention to “Baseball Theme” performed by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. This piece of music is purely instrumental and was part of the cartoon movie “A Boy Named Charlie Brown.” Vince Guaraldi was born in 1928 in San Francisco. He was a composer and played piano and was very well known for his music for the Peanuts TV series. During his studies at San Francisco State University, he started to play boogie woogie and jazz in local clubs and performed with artists like  Sonny Criss, Chubby Jackson en Bill Harris. His first official r ..read more