I've got orders to Glons, Belgium. Gonna be there at least 2 years, and unless they play softball over there, I'll have to live vicariously through you guys.

I am excited about going there, I'll just have to learn about soccer I guess

I'll go to Belgium in your place so you can stay and ump. How's the pay over there?

Incidentally, my goal is to move to Alabama someday. Back to my roots.

I was talking to an umpire from Belgium or somewhere over there, (Holland? ) and they do have softball. Now, I'm not sure if they talk English or not. Might be a barrier, there, I dunno.

Good Luck

Cool, I haven't done any searching about softball over there yet, I'll wait till I'm all settled in over there.

I'll be living in the Liege province, they speak French there and I'm ok with French, I'm sure after a couple months of immersion I'll be much better.

Don't think Belgium is involved, but maybe someone from the ESF can help you out.


http://members.aol.com/secrgenesf/esf.htm

Belgium, huh? That means cheap Belgian Ale! Want to trade places???

Bama,

You should be able to find some good ball in the area. I know that a pitcher who graduated from Az State U., played this past summer in The Netherlands, which is very close to Belgium.

Do they allow wooden cleats in the Netherlands?

As the Username indicates, Yes I'm dutch!
Let me help AlabamaBlue.
Both in Belgium as in the Netherlands we play softball. In Belgium they have 2 orginastaions, one for Wallonië and ond for Vlaanderen (the french-spoken part and dutch-speaking)
The level in Belgium is (saddly to say) much lower than in Holland. The dutch ladies-team is top 3 in Europe (Used to be the number 1) and the men-team are going to Christchurch for the WorldChamp's in january as Europe's Best.
And the Netherlands are close by; there where Belgium ends, starts the Netherlands. Execpt there where you cross the border with Germanië, Luxemburg or France. It is a real small country.
Though there is an langue-war between Wallonië and Vlaanderen. One won't speak dutch, the other won't speak french, most do speak english. As in Holland you can use dutch, english, french and/or german. Spanish and Russian are rare spoken...
But I guess Dutch should not be to hard to learn: all of our children speak it...
Once I saw an umpire on wooden shoe's (klompen), this was early 80-ties in a vey low ladies-softball-competition. (My own dad, was ask to ump when he was only a spectator. In the garden he uses "klompen".
Dutch season opens in March/April and ends in September/October.
Need to know more, ask...

see also
http://www.knbsb.nl (dutch base- and softball org.)
http://www.bubs.nl (dutch umpire and scorer ***. for base- and softball)

Thanks Dutch, I knew about the language differences and geography, but I appreciate the softball knowledge. I'll be living in French-speaking Liege, and once I pick up the language and get settled in I'll look into officiating.

Re: Yes, there is softball there
 

Noted.
mick

Re: Re: Yes, there is softball there
 

Hmmmmm, our moderator has been busy today...

Happy Holidays mick

http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...nachten003.gif

glen