The Hoboken Pioneers enter the 2022 D1 Belgian baseball season as defending champions. Credit: Royal Belgian Baseball and Softball Federation.
Two days after Opening Day for Major League Baseball, Belgium’s baseball and softball players will also start in the new 2022 season. According to the Royal Belgium Baseball and Softball Federation, never have their competitions started so early in recent years, and there have never been so many teams registered in the national competitions as in 2022. Incredibly, it appears this number might actually have been higher were more baseball and softball fields in existence in the Northern European country.
A total of 167 teams will participate this season, easily setting a new record. There are 63 teams in three youth series, no fewer than 50 baseball teams in four divisions, and a record 54 teams in all softball series. Women’s Fast Pitch Softball as well as Slow Pitch (coed and recreational) are particularly popular.
It is a huge job for the competition managers to be able to let everyone play as much as possible during the weekend with these record numbers.
René Laforce, president of the Royal Belgian Baseball and Softball Federation: “We are limited by the number of available baseball and softball fields in Belgium. Extra field capacity at existing clubs by municipalities would be more than welcome or new locations/clubs should be added to be able to spread more games in the future.
“Obviously we are very pleased with this positive growth in membership and the first games of 2022 will therefore be played early in the season in order to be able to complete all normal competition rounds.”
Start Dates
Sat, Apr 9: Youth; Baseball Divisions 3 and 4, Women’s Division 3 Softball; Slow Pitch Softball.
Sun, Apr 10: Women’s Division 1 Softball.
Sat, Apr 16: Division 1 Baseball (11 teams).
Fri, Apr 22: Men’s Division 1 Softball
