My experience going to a baseball game in Europe.

I googled if there are any batting cages in Amsterdam, where I could go during my vacation in Holland. I found there was one on the outskirts of the city, connected to the stadium of the Amsterdam Pirates, the local baseball team. Next thing I noticed, that during the time I’d be in Amsterdam, the European Champion Cup would take place. I decided to get tickets for June 7th, this was a great opportunity to see what baseball culture is like outside of the U.S.

I was looking forward to seeing the differences between a Dodgers game and a game in Amsterdam. I googled some more and found out that Holland’s national team is the best in Europe, and ranked 8th in the world, according to the WBSC ranking. Some of your favorite MLB players might actually play for Holland’s national team like Xander Bogaerts, Kenley Jansen, and Jonathan Schoop for example.

With Holland’s ranking, I expected baseball to be pretty popular there. I know Europe’s all about soccer, but still it looked really promising. Oh boy, was I wrong, it might have been that the game was on a Wednesday afternoon, and most people were working, but there were only a handful of people. At a High School or College game in the U.S. there are a lot more people that attend, than the game I went to in Amsterdam.

Some of the differences’ I noticed was that the announcers, while they spoke in English, were really inconsistent. It started at the introduction of the players, they announced several players, and then said and the rest of the team. Imaging how degrading that most feel for the players to be announced as the rest of the team. Here and there the batter’s name would be announced, like they announced the 1st batter's name of the inning for example, but not the 2nd batter, and would announce the 3rd batter. It could be that the announcers were unfamiliar with the names of the players, because neither team was the home team, Amsterdam Pirates.

During the game, if players had to use the restroom they needed to walk out of the dugout, and go to the gym on the property. So players were walking where the audience was sitting. Can you imagine Mookie Betts walking out the dugout, between the fans to use the restroom. He wouldn't make it to the restroom, because people would start taking pictures, and they'd stop him.

While there were a handful of people maybe between 50 and 100, they didn’t really cheer on the teams, besides a couple fans that flew in from Germany to support their team. There weren't really any tunes being played like during an MLB game. There wasn’t really any concession stand like baseball stadiums in the U.S. I mean you could obviously get something to drink.

But enough with the complaints, the game itself was no different than a game anywhere else in the world. The game was between the Paderborn Untouchables (Germany) and Brno Draci (Czechia). Draci, the home team for this game, scored 2 runs in the 3rd inning, and it looked like Draci was going to win the game easily. Until the 9th inning when the Untouchables started to go off, and scored 4 runs. Unfortunately, for Draci, the 2 runs they scored in the 3rd inning would be the only runs for them.

I asked someone at the game about the E.C.C, and they told me it was just a competition between the best teams in Europe from several different countries. These teams normally don’t play each other. The best comparison would be that the winners of the World Series, the winners of the Mexican League, and the winners of other North American leagues would get together.

All in all it was a nice experience to see how it is to go to a baseball game in a different country. Different but nice. Oh and the batting cage I asked if it was open, staff told me that it was only for players that week, because of the E.C.C. I would tell anyone to experience a sport they like in a different country.