WE WON!!!!!
An unbelievable season was capped off by an amazing championship game. Diego Markwell threw a 1-hit gem to take the best of 7 Holland Series 4-2 over the Amsterdam Pirates.
Back in Holland for my 1st year after dabbling in in the minor leagues for a year with the Blue Jays, I came back, determined to make this a positive move back here. With a very solid team at my back, I was able to put together the best season of my life.
I learned so much about pitching, how to attack hitters, and about pitches to make in certain counts and situations. All of this helped my team (Door Neptunus (Rotterdam, NL)) to a 39-3 record during the season, 7-2 in the playoffs, including a staff that compiled 17 shutouts in 51 games. Personally I finished with a 9-0 record, 0.39 ERA, 36hits and 83 k's in 69 innings. You can find the league stats here.
We had a rough time scratching out the first few games of the Holland Series as the Amsterdam Pirates played great baseball, and we played shaky baseball. Either way, we provailed and got stronger throughout the series. This was my third year playing in the Dutch Headclass, and my third playoff appearance, finally winning a Championship.
The celebrations were great, our bus ride home was MC'd by our outspoken Australian pitcher (and finals MVP) Dushan Ruzic. He had players one by one come up and sing anything, say anything... it was for the most part hilarious, including such songs as "We are the Champions", and several dutch chants that I couldn't follow... just sang along like I knew what I was saying.
It was great to be there with veteran players like Jeroen Sluijter making his last bus ride as a player, and being able to experice a championship with other players maybe playing their last games also (including myself).
Time for a few weeks of National team practices, then a trip to the Intercontinental Cup in Taiwan for 2 1/2 weeks at the end of October.... Then Finally back to Canada!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Congrats on a great year, great personal success, as well as team success! Way to pitch Lee, and play your part. Enjoy your few weeks off before going to Taiwan...
realizing all along that you ARE "living your dream"!!
Now get your shoulder ready and kick ass in Taiwan!
What's up Leon ? Im a big fan of baseball and international baseball as well. I check your blog from time to time and I enjoy it very much. I have a question to ask you and if you have some answers that would be great, man.
Early this year I had the crazy idea of wanting to play ball in Europe. So, I used mister-baseball.com to find club names and I went on those clubs websites looking for contact info. I probably sent out 60 emails and I got a couple of clubs interested. One club was in Belgium and the other in the Czech. Things didn't work out because of funding and other obsticals.
My question to you is, is there a better way of contacting clubs in Europe besides sending out emails using google translate and hoping for a return email back from the clubs ? I pretty much just tell them out myself and drop a baseball resume.
I don't stand out in a community forum blog on mister-baseball or any other website. I didn't play college and don't have pro experience. Just pitching in amateur and competitive men's leagues is all I have done. I'm not a bad pitcher, if I didn't think I could do this I wouldn't even dream of wanting to play over seas or even write this to you.
So, if you have any tips or whatnot I would appreciate it a lot.
Thanks for your time.
Ryan Dunham
Lenexa, KS
Google translate??? We speak english here in Europe, at least all of the baseball guys around the continent...
Wow.. a year in the Jay's system made that much of a difference? After experiencing AA ball and now back with Door Neptunus, how do the leagues compare?
Mom- Thanks!
Anonymous #1- Doing my best with that, so far 1 inning 3 K's in Taiwan...
FCNEB- The only players the top leagues in Europe (Holland, Italy, maybe Germany) pick up are former minor leaguers or solid players with EU passports. If you don't have pro, and especially any college experience, don't expect to recieve any money, or even a flight. Even if you are good, and throw 90, the managers and owners in europe can only go by the stats they can find about you online. So be prepared to pay some, and/ or have SOLID refrences. I know this probably isn't good news, but I'm just being as straight forward as I can be. Hope this helps man...
Anon. #2- Don't worry, not missing much, good site if you're dutch... If you need a translation, yes, use google translate.
Iain- It's not like I had a 5.00 era before in the dutch league. 1.22 in 2007, and 1.64 in 2007... but also, yes, sitting in the bullpen talking baseball with former and current big leaguers and stud prospects who know how to get people out is quite the bonus to have.
Post a Comment