by Mortsel Stars
The cold, but dry and sometimes sunny Easter weekend was the first outside experience for most teams at the tournament. Due to the cold, the home run derby was cancelled and games were shortened to 7 innings sometimes. The first pitch was by the ambassador of Japan for Belgium, Mr. Sakaba, a big baseball fan himself.
On Saturday organizing club Mortsel Stars started against Olympia Haarlem from The Netherlands. The Stars took the lead in the first inning and, although Haarlem kept up with one run behind, did not give away their lead anymore. After 7 innings the home team had their first victory with a 4-3 win. Team Finland, just fresh off the plane, couldn’t get grip on the pitching of PUC Paris. In 7 innings the French pitching took care of 21 K’s, allowing just 3 runners on base. Final score 5-0.
After a short night, not only due to the hour change, Team Finland could set things right against Olympia Haarlem on Sunday. Struggling with the cold Olympia allowed a handful of errors and giveaways to first base, resulting in a 1-10 loss for the Dutch. More excitement in the afternoon with the both yet undefeated teams. Although the Stars took the lead early in the game, a similar scenario of base-on-balls and errors seemed to be unavoidable at these low temperatures. After 2.5 innings Mortsel was well on their way with an 0-8 lead. The French battled back to a 3-8 score the same inning. A change on the mound for Paris, kept Mortsel from scoring more runs, while the French offense slowly gathered a few runs. Both teams wanting to take the opportunity to go deeper in their pitching staff, wanted to play the full 9 innings. After 8.5 innings, the Stars were in the lead with 8-9. With 2 outs, in the ninth, bases loaded, a hit in center gave PUC Paris their second victory. Final score 10-9.
Monday started very sunny, but a cold wind cancelled any hope for real baseball weather. In the first game of that day, Mortsel Stars opened the score in the first with 4 runs. Only in the 4th inning Team Finland answered with 4 runs, but the Stars already added to 11 runs in the previous innings. After 7 innings the final score was 5-14 in favor of the Belgians. The last game of the tournament was reduced to almost formality because the final standings were already decided. After 5 innings the Dutch lost to PUC Paris with a 6-5 score.
The tournament winner was PUC Paris, in second place the organizing team Mortsel Stars, third Team Finland and last place for Olympia Haarlem. Although the cold, teams and organization were satisfied, and repeat – or even tradition – for next year is certain.