by Pim van Nes
Honkbalweek president Frits Mulder hosted a press conference two and a half hours before the last Play Ball! He told the journalists, gathered around coffee and rolls in the comfortable press room of Pim Mulier stadium, that attendance, atmosphere and reactions from participating teams have inspired him to announce the realization of the next (28th) edition of the tournament in 2016.
We do not expect a financial profit when concluding the accounting figures, but all other aspects are definitely positive. Even rare absence of rain helped us to keep our game schedule valid, Mulder stated. At average rain disturbes one day delay to a baseball week in Netherlands summers. Showers and thunders did strike the Netherlands, but not the Haarlem region during the last ten days.
The total number of paying visitors of the tournament is 17.000, according to press officer Robert Sant, but two games with the Netherlands national team brought us a full house (over 3.000) and their other five games were good enough to call it an optically full house. Even the non-Dutch games of the tournament were attended by at least 1.500 fans. Present finale game between young selections from USA and Japan has attracted another crowd of close to 3.000. Most of all-games tickets buyers (close to 500) really visited each of the 15 games scheduled between 11 and 20 July.
Photo by Petra van der Valk