Baseball in the Netherlands started in , having been introduced to the country by English teacher J.C.G Grasé of Amsterdam, following a holiday to America. The first professional baseball league (now the Honkbal Hoofdklasse) began in . The national governing body for baseball is the Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Federation (). The Netherlands National Baseball Team is consistently ranked in the top ten of the WBSC World Rankings and has won the European Baseball Championship twenty times. Although baseball is a minority sport within the Netherlands, it is the main sport of the Dutch overseas territories in the Caribbean (the former Netherlands Antilles). History 1911 - 1940 The driving force in the early days of Dutch baseball was J.C.G. Grasé of Amsterdam. After discovering baseball while on vacation in the United States, he introduced the game in the Netherlands in 1911. An English teacher by profession, Grasé was able to translate the rules of the game into Dutch. The first official games were played in 1911 and on March 12, 1912, Grasé founded the Dutch Baseball Union. Grasé was also the founder of the oldest baseball club in Europe, Quick Amsterdam (founded 1 March 1913). The first official competition was played in 1922. The major league was formed out of four clubs that year: Ajax (a branch of the famous football club), Blue White (also a football club), Hercules and Quick Amsterdam. Quick Amsterdam became the first Dutch champion. During the early years, baseball was only played in Amsterdam, but quickly spread to Haarlem as well. These two cities dominated Dutch baseball until 1963. In 1925, a ship of the US Navy visited Amsterdam. Players of Blue White heard of the visit and invited the sailors to a game of baseball. After one inning, the Americans led 14-0. After two hours of play, the final score was 27-2. In the early days, the pitcher was the one who could throw the fastest ball. At the time, it was considered unsportsmanlike to bunt or to take advantage of the lack of control by a pitcher and it was considered a humiliation to get a base on balls. It was far better to hit a fly out than to reach first base on four balls. Furthermore, the sport was played wearing shorts. At the end of the 1937 season, EDO from Haarlem and Blue White from Amsterdam played each other to