by Pim van Nes
Before finale game of 14th Citrix World Port Tournament in Rotterdam, organizing committee president Gerard Vaandrager, accompanied by first time technical director Bart Volkerijk, hosted a press conference in the stadium’s business lounge. The conference was attended by representatives of Netherlands media and of Mister-Baseball.com.
Vaandrager expressed that the tournament, recently in depression, made a revival thanks to new board members and thanks to new sponsor Citrix. The more compact version with four teams and during eight days has turned out successful.
The total attendance figure of approximately 29.000 is much lower than those for most previous ten days and five teams versions, but the average occupation degree of about 90 % (2.200 individuals) satiesfies Vaandrager. In order to reduce pre-tournament investment costs, no extensions were built to the existing stadium. Consequently most of the Netherlands games produced a full house in the Rotterdam stadium.
The village area entertainment before, between and after the games attracted many baseball fans to relax in a Caribean atmosphere with latin food and drinks. According to Vaandrager, we all need the passion for baseball in order to make this tournament possible and he refered especially to the many volunteers who sacrificed their leisure time to work for the love of baseball.
President for the first ten editions of WPT, Vaandrager came back to the helm to save continuation of the biannual series. He looks forward optimistically to organize the 15th edition in 2015. Present short tournament has worked out that satisfactorily, that both Vaandrager and Volkerijk expect to stick to the format of four teams and eight days.
Former pitcher and still Hoofdklasse strikeout record (1943) holder Volkerijk mentioned the tournament’s strong defense (71 runs only scored in 13 games)and the crowded fields surrounding WPT podium, where simultaneously pupils of Rotterdam schools learned and played baseball and softball.
Individual stats after 6 games each team:
- Batting avg: Dwayne Kemp NL .400
- Slugging pct: Luo Gou Long CT .529
- On base pct: Gianison Boekhoudt NL .474
- RBI: Dwayne Kemp NL and Huang Chia Wei CT 4
- Homerun: Alexander Malleta CU 1
- Triples: Luo Guo Long CT 2
- Doubles: Lin Wang Wei CT 3
- Stolen bases: Raywendly van Gurp Curacao 7 (!)
- ERA 0.00:
- Ismel Jimenez – Cuba 15.2 innings
- Rob Cordemans – NL 9.0 innings
- Kevin Kelly – Curacao 8.2 innings
- and 2 with less innings
- Wins: Ismel Jimenez Cuba and Diegomar Markwell NL 2
- Strikeouts per game: Chen Yu Hsun CT 12.71
- Walks allowed per game: Kevin Kelly Curacao (8.2 inn) and Fan Meng Chen CT (7.1) 0.00
- Fielding assists: Shurendell Mujica Curacao 19
- Fielding double plays: Shurendell Mujica Curacao 5