Two days after Opening Day of Major League Baseball, the Belgian Baseball and Softball players will also start in the new 2022 season. Never have our competitions started so early in recent years and there have never been so many teams registered in the national competitions as in 2022!
A total of 167 teams are currently participating and this is an absolute record! We have 63 teams in 3 youth series; no fewer than 50 Baseball teams in 4 Divisions and a record 54 teams in all Softball series. Softball Ladies Fast Pitch as well as Slow Pitch (Coëd 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. “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”. Another short-term alternative is to find sponsors who, for example, provide lighting so that games can continue for longer in the evening.
Additional coaches, umpires and scorers will also be needed this season. So there is a lot of work to be done for all volunteers and boards. “The committees are working hard to supervise and realize this”. New is a digital competition platform that will be used to provide Live Online Scoring in Divisions 1 of Baseball and Softball.
MyWBSC: https://belgium.wbsc.org/en/calendar
“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.”
Saturday April 9 2022, the first games of the youth series, Divisions 3 and 4 of Baseball, D3 of Softball Ladies and the Slow Pitch will start. Continued on April 10 by several exciting series including Softball Ladies D1. Baseball at the highest level in D1 will start on Saturday April 16 with 11 teams. For Softball Men D1, games will start on April 22.
All competition games and info on: https://belgiumbaseballsoftball.leaguerepublic.com
Let’s Play Ball!
René Laforce
President KBBSF-FRBBS