Contents

Honkbal Hoofdklasse

Dutch professional baseball league

Honkbal Hoofdklasse

Current season, competition or edition: 2024 Honkbal Hoofdklasse season
Sport	Baseball
Founded	1922
No. of teams	8
Country	Netherlands
Most recent champion(s)	Amsterdam Pirates (7th title)
Most titles	Neptunus (19 titles)
Relegationto	Overgangsklasse
Related competitions	European Cup

The Honkbal Hoofdklasse (Dutch for Major League Baseball) is the highest level of professional baseball in the Netherlands. It is an eight-team league that plays a 42-game schedule and is overseen by the Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Federation (KNBSB).

Games are played principally on weekends. The season runs from April to September and is followed by the playoffs among the four best teams, which culminates in the Holland Series. Both of the playoff rounds are best-of-five. The league follows a promotion and relegation system with the Honkbal Overgangsklasse so that the composition of both levels changes from year to year. Many of the official team nicknames contain the name of the club's corporate sponsor.

The two best teams participate in the European Cup.

History[edit]

This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Dutch. (July 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepLorGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Dutch Wikipedia article at [[:nl:Honkbal hoofdklasse]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|nl|Honkbal hoofdklasse}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. Parts of this article (those related to information on the 2013 season that could be replaced with more recent seasons) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (September 2017) This section needs expansion with: more in-depth history of the league examining key figures and periods in the development of the league (teams joining, influence of Major League Baseball, etc.). You can help by adding to it. (September 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Honkbal Hoofdklasse has been the highest level of competitive baseball in the Netherlands since 1958, when it was elevated over the former Eerste Klasse by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Honkbal Bond, the forerunner of the KNBSB. The Eerste Klasse served as the top baseball competition in the Netherlands from its establishment in 1922 until 1957, excluding 1945 when play was suspended due to World War II. The Hoofdklasse has been organized by the KNBSB since 1971.

Until 1986 the winner of the season was also crowned the national champion, with the exception of 1972 and 1973, when a best-of-five Holland Series was held between the top two teams to determine the champion. Since 1987 the Holland Series has been held annually at the end of the season to determine the national champion. The series is currently held in a best-of-seven format.

In 2021 the Eerste Klasse was reinstated as the second level of Dutch professional baseball and the league to which teams from the Hoofdklasse are relegated at the end of the season. This was also the case from 1958 to 1986 and 2001 to 2009. In the intervening periods, from 1987 to 2000 and 2010 to 2020, the Overgangsklasse operated as the secondary professional baseball league in the Netherlands.

Following the 2021 Season the KNBSB decided to end relegation and promotion and operate the Hoofdklasse with fixed teams. The reform is part of broader efforts to improve the league's quality of play and national visibility. The tournament was also expanded to 9 teams for the 2022 season.^[1] The Silicon Storks, who were slated to be relegated, will remain in the Hoofdklasse alongside the RCH Pinguins, who had earned a promotion to the top league.^[2]

Current clubs[edit]

L&D Pirates

Results[edit]

See also[edit]

• Honkbal Rookie League
• Baseball in the Netherlands
• Baseball awards#Netherlands
• Baseball awards#Europe

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• de Nederlandse honkbalsite (Dutch)
• KNBSB (Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Federation) (Dutch)
• Connor, Joe. Welcome to the Netherlands. ESPN (MLB), January 17, 2006. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
• Remington, Alex. Honkbal! Netherlands Bids to Host MLB in 2014. FanGraphs. September 1, 2011. Retrieved 2011-09-03.
• 2008 Netherlands Baseball All-Star Team and MVP (fan vote at "de Nederlandse honkbalsite"). November 10, 2008. Mister Baseball: All about Baseball & Softball in Europe

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