Baseball in the Netherlands

Baseball in the Netherlands started in 1911, having been introduced to the country by English teacher J.C.G Grasé of Amsterdam, following a holiday to America. The first professional baseball league (now the Honkbal Hoofdklasse) began in 1922. The national governing body for baseball is the Koninklijke Nederlandse Baseball en Softball Bond (Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Federation).

The Netherlands National Baseball Team is consistently ranked in the top ten of the WBSC World Rankings and has won the European Baseball Championship twenty times. Although baseball is a minority sport within the Netherlands, it is the main sport of the Dutch overseas territories in the Caribbean (the former Netherland Antilles).

The driving force in the early days of Dutch baseball was J.C.G. Grasé of Amsterdam. After discovering baseball while on vacation in the United States, he introduced the game in the Netherlands in 1911. An English teacher by profession, Grasé was able to translate the rules of the game into Dutch. The first official games were played in 1911 and on 12 March 1912, Grasé founded the Dutch Baseball Union. Grasé was also the founder of the oldest baseball club in Europe, Quick Amsterdam (founded 1 March 1913).

The first official competition was played in 1922. The major league was formed out of four clubs that year: Ajax (a branch of the famous football club), Blue White (also a football club), Hercules and Quick Amsterdam. Quick Amsterdam became the first Dutch champion. During the early years, baseball was only played in Amsterdam, and quickly spread to Haarlem as well. These two cities dominated Dutch baseball until 1963.

...
Wikipedia