One month before the start of the new season in the German Baseball-Bundesliga last year’s fourth ranked team in the southern division, the Haar Disciples, announced a spectacular transfer. National team pitcher Nils Hartkopf, who was named MVP of the European Cup Qualifier in Solingen last season, is leaving the northern division champion Solingen Alligators to join the club in the south of Munich.
The 24-year-old right-hander began his career in the Baseball-Bundesliga with the Alligators, later played for the Mainz Athletics, before returning to Solingen last winter. Hartkopf has a 14-8 record with an ERA of 2.84 in 65 games (22 starts) at the top level in German Baseball. He has struck out 250 batters in 212 innings, walking 109. Also playing regularly as an infielder he is a decent hitter at the plate with a batting line of .272/.354/.341 in 186 games.
Hartkopf won the German championship with the A’s in 2007 and was a member of the German national team at the IBAF Baseball World Cups in Taiwan and Europe and the European Championship in Germany last summer.
Photo: © Manfred Holzhauser