The favourite sport for young people
Baseball is one of the most played sports in the world. It is a sport that is especially popular in the United States, Canada, Mexico and in the Caribbean and in large parts of Asia. Baseball is also called America’s Favorite Pasttime .
In Europe, it is one of the less popular sports. In the Netherlands there are 25,000 to 30,000 people playing baseball while in the United States millions of people play baseball.
In the United States, baseball is the main sport from April to October. The regular season will end towards the end of September. After this, the play-off will be played at the highest level in October, which will be concluded by the World Series, the championship for Club teams.
On the ABC islands, Curaçao is mainly one of the islands that has produced the most professional baseball player. Names such as Andruw Jones, Kenley Jansen, Wladimir Balentien, Ozzie Albies, Jonathan Schoop Andrelton Simmons etc. are of course not unknown. And from Aruba, of course, neither does the X-man Xander Boagearts, who grew up on Bonaire in his younger years.
Even such a small island as Bonaire is growing rapidly. Besides football, it is the most played sport on Bonaire and starts at some clubs from the age of 4. So baseball is for young and old, for boys and girls at amateur level.
Bonaire currently has five baseball organizations / associations that are daily engaged in training and guiding young people to be involved in this sport. Offering young people the opportunity to play their favorite sport in a safe and fair way, offering them the opportunity to grow as an athlete but also as a person is very important to the organizations.
The intention is of course also to be able to keep an eye on the talents and to offer possible perspective to this target group.
