Belgian story

The story of the Brussels Kangaroos

Introduction

It's been almost 20 years since a bunch of buddies from the University of Brussels started throwing the horsehide around campus between their parties and occasional study sessions, but the club they started, the Brussels Kangaroos, is hopping higher than ever.

On a typical baseball summer weekend in 2006, the Kangaroos' 9 different teams will play against teams from all over Belgium, from the windswept plains of Namur to the gritty port neighborhoods of Antwerp.

From Saturday dawn to Sunday dusk, at Stade Fallon and on enemy fields, 150 boys, girls, men and women will play baseball and softball for the 'Roos. An improved women's softball squad will compete in the country's top division while men's baseball tries to return to the top after getting relegated in 2005.

Six youth squads - 2 teams for ages 9-to-12, 2 for 12-to-15 and one for 14-to-18 -- continue to build an impressive record, and that program is now recognized as one of the top two in the country, along with the Merksem Greys.

The focus in 2006 will be on the youth program. Bowdoin college grad Tom McMahon and Kangaroo veterans John Miller and Patrick and Pierrot Gerard will try to steer the club's 6 youth teams to better quality baseball. Their goal: Instill proper winning fundamentals across the entire program.

Highlights in 2005 included two cadet teams, a minimes and a juniors teams in the top five. An all-star team with several Kangaroos placed 2nd at the European under-14 championships in Kutno, Poland.

In 2004, the men's team finished in sixth place, the 9-12-year-old minimes captured a national championship, and an all-star team anchored by five cadets (ages 12-14) beat Rotterdam 1-0 to win the European Junior League championships.

It's been a long, hard road to success.

When the club was founded in 1987, its members had never seen a real baseball game. They hadn't heard of shortstop, never mind a double play. But thanks to a succession of dedicated individuals, the club has created a new baseball universe in Brussels. A list of the coaches who have worked on the team tells of the uniqueness of the Kangaroo story: a US army Sergeant, a Christian missionary, a Japanese businessman, a Nicaraguan freedom fighter, a Canadian commando, a restaurant owner, a diamond executive, a banker, a professional college coach, a former Baltimore Orioles pitching prospect from Australia and a top Nato strategic planner who drove a Z3 and bragged about his top secret missions to Cyprus. Eighteen years after its founders started with a couple gloves and a ball, the club stands tall as one of the biggest in Belgium, ready to compete every year for national and international titles.

And as anybody who's ever enjoyed a Stade Fallon Saturday evening with beers and a barbecue, it's also the most fun that baseball could ever be.

Genesis (1987)

The Kangaroos began with a vacation to the States. In 1987, University of Brussels (ULB) student Karim Dhanani visited friends at Brown university in Rhode Island and fell in love with baseball. "The atmosphere was incredible," he remembers. "I knew right away this was something I wanted to recreate in Belgium." So Dhanani, now a 32-year-old banker in London, returned to Brussels with a mission. "Start a university team at the ULB, just like in the States." He recruited friends and together they started playing catch and hitting balls on the ULB campus. "People stopped to stare. They had never seen baseball before. But soon, others joined in and we had a team." To learn the game, the team read beginners' books on baseball. One still in the team archives explains that "the third baseman plays near third base" and that "pitchers do not want the other team to hit the ball".

And the name? (1987)

Belgian baseball has a history of colorful names. Gosselies Black Harpies, Aywaille Bulldogs, Andenne Blue Sox, Ath Dolphins, Mons St Georges' Dragons, Gilly Golden Hands, Zottegem Bebops, Fleron Diggers. Nobody is quite sure how the Kangaroos got their name. Danani says he's forgotten. "I think it was because our first gloves were made out of Kangaroo leather," says now-president Manu Roggen. Patrick Vandervondelen, the first coach, says he doesn't know. "Nobody ever told me." The most likely answer, says former Quentin Verhest, is that the original players once threw a party at Aqualibi amusement park, where the mascot was a kangaroo. Former coach Greg Testerman has his own theory. "Karim won't tell you this, but I think it's because he wanted everybody to walk around Brussels with a big K on his hat."

The early days (1987-1988)

The Kangaroos' first coach was Patrick Vandervondelen, a Belgian student who discovered baseball in 1984 when he saw The Natural and promptly joined the Leuven Naturals, a club founded by Belgians who liked the movie. "I learned the rules by reading the rule book A to Z," he says. "The real game wasn't at all like in the movies, but it was so much fun learning to hit and catch and throw. That's what kept us going in the beginning. The fun. We just loved it." Brussels, he says, was a total baseball wasteland back then. "No equipment, no coaches, no fields, nothing." So Vandervondelen organized pick-up games, including one against Mormon missionaries. "They showed up when we were practicing and asked to play. Before the game, they had us all crowd around the mound and pray." The Kangaroos practiced every Thursday from nine to noon on ULB's all-purpose athletic field. Once in a while, they used the field at the International School of Brussels (ISB) - a real baseball diamond. In any case, anybody who cared to show up played.

Practice games (1988)

In 1988, the Kangaroos played only a handful of pick-up games at the ISB against teams like the Naturals, the Liège Rebel Foxes and the Merchtem Cats. Vandervondelen recalls a game against the Naturals in April 1987. "It was absolutely pouring rain and we were getting killed. We put raincoats on and played anyway. But nobody cared. We just had so much fun." An unsigned description of an 1988 game against the Cats gives an impression of what kind of baseball the Kangaroos played at the time. "We faced Merchtem, a sportsmanlike squad. We got off to a great start by scoring 5 runs by achieving 8 to 10 'take your base'. We never touched the ball, of course. Unfortunately, we tried a triple steal, so THEY got to hit." The Kangaroos lost, 25-8. In November 1988, the two played again and this time, the team only lost 13-15. A letter in the club archives proudly quotes the umpire from that game as saying, "It's time you guys signed up as a real team." Karim Dhanani remembers that moment as "a point where we realised that we doing something serious."

An American coach (1989)

Dhanani was excited about his new project, and he promptly signed his fledgling club up in the federation's new beginners division. There was one ingredient missing. "We needed an American to really teach us the game." So Dhanani started putting up flyers and asking every American he knew if they wanted to coach. "Here was this guy ranting about the Kangaroos," recalls Greg Testerman, then-manager at Brussels' Continental Bank, where Dhanani interned in 1989. "And he wanted me to coach. Of course, I had no interest in watching a bunch of Belgians play baseball." But Dhanani pleaded his case hard. "Finally, I agreed to go watch them play," says Testerman, now 38 and Miami-based general manager for Banco Santander's operations in Latin America. "And it was terrible. They ran on foul balls. They didn't know the rules. They dropped everything. It was comical, like the Bad New Bears. They were grown men playing at the T-Ball level. I hadn't played baseball since I was 18 but I knew I could help this team." Testerman and Bob Coats - a Kansas City diamond executive - nursed the team through its baseball growing pains. "It was frustrating because these guys were used to playing with their feet," says Coats. "But it was also exciting because they wanted to learn so bad." Coats is close friends with former NL Cy Young winner Rick Sutcliffe and brought over some tapes of Sutcliffe to illustrate how to play. "For the most of them, that was the first real baseball they had ever seen."

The first seasons (1989-1990)

In 1989, the team played their games on the hockey field at Heysel. No records survive from that year but the Kangaroos finished in the middle of the beginners division. In 1990, they entered the Belgian fourth division and marched to first place with a 12-4 record. It wasn't pretty baseball. A typical score shows the Kangaroos beating Nivelles, 25-24. In the final game of the season, the beat their arch-rivals, the Brussels Titans, 15-14. But their championship was a sour one. Because of a paperwork error (a catcher who played before he got his license), the club had to remain in fourth division. "Very discouraging," says Dhanani. "It really took the wind out of our sails." In 1990, the Kangaroos moved onto a soccer field at Stade Fallon. Yankee Stadium it was not. Right field was 220 feet and left field 430 feet, but it was still baseball. From home plate, the field sloped down toward the outfield. The pitcher's mound was built our of concrete blocks covered with dirt. But for the Kangaroos, it was home. And it was (sort of) real baseball.

New blood (1991)

The first generation of Kangaroos was nearing the end of their rope. But fortunately, help was on its way. At Jacqmain high school, two blocks from the EU Commission building, another group of young Belgians was discovering baseball. "We were just fooling around," says Jean-Michel Depasse. "We used Delhaize bags stuffed with straw as bases." Every day, the guys would gather on the fields at their school and play. "It took us six weeks to discover shortstop," says Quentin Verhest. "But we all got the bug hard." Eventually, these new ballplayers joined the Kangaroos, where they played on the reserve team. This nucleus - most of whom would eventually play in first division - lost their first game against the Liège Rebel Foxes, 42-2. "We walked up to the plate with our legs trembling," says Pierrot Gérard.

A real club (1992)

Following the 1991 season, most of the original Kangaroos quit. The new guys decided to start a non-profit organization to run the club. Its founding members were Dhanani, Jacques Piroux, Quentin Verhest, Jimmy De Rede, Jean-Michel Depasse, Manu Roggen and Pierre-François Gérard. "That's when we evolved from a university team into a real baseball club," says Verhest. With Testerman and former Boston College pitcher John McGuirk as coaches, the team limped to a 6-14 record. Testerman quit during the middle of the season ("My company was arranging a transfer for me to Asia and I felt I had brought the team as far as my amateur coaching skills would permit," he says) and an ad in The Bulletin yielded McGuirk, a Christian missionary. Another American, Henry Scott, also coached and played. "Henry was the one who really taught us what it meant to play baseball," says Larry Gustin. The team acquired a batting cage and a ptiching machine. It also the first year that the Kangaroos helped run American Day, an all-day extravaganza of football, baseball, burgers and bands. Jacques Piroux, who ran the Kangaroos' PR machine in those years, coordinated the Day with considerable flair. During the mid-1990s, it was one of the most popular events in Brussels. The highly successful Day would run until 1998. With Verhest, Piroux would prove to be the Kangaroos' most valuable asset, running the club with vision but also sobriety.

The winning way (1993)

In 1993, the Kangaroos clobbered the 4th division, finishing 20-0. "It was wonderful," says Verhest. "One of the best years of my life." Roggen (1b), Jacques Piroux (rf), Ben Piroux (cf) Verhest (lf), Gérard (ss), Gustin (p), Depasse (3b) and De Rede (c) formed the club's first real championship club. Gérard remembers being thrown in the lake after recording the final out. "It was a great feeling," he says. "But we knew there was so much more work to do." The club also fielded a 16-18 junior team which got killed playing experienced Antwerp squads. "Their clubs had been going for 50 years," says Verhest. "Of course, later on, we'd play against the same guys in first division."

On the way up (1994-1995)

In 1994, the Kangaroos' first season in third division, the club struggled, finishing 7-13. McGuirk left for the States and the club hired Julio Amador, a former Nicaraguan freedom fighter, to take his place. In 1995, the Kangaroos finished 18-2 (losing only to the Mons Athletics) and won the division two title. The club also started to recruit kids for young teams. "I set three goals," says Verhest, who was had become president in 1993 and would served until 2000. "Good coaches, a good field and granting anybody who wanted to play the opportunity to play baseball." Through his young nephews who were growing up with the game, Gérard had perhaps the best perspective. "We were struggling to learn baseball, but I wanted to make sure that my nephews would grow up with real baseball." Verhest and Roggen also began to play for a brand-new baseball field at Fallon.

Hollow years (1996-1997)

Amador resigned as coach following 1995 and Nato defense planner Keith Dunn took over for the club's first season in division two, in 1996. Despite good players, the Kangaroos were thrashed, finishing 5-13. In 1997, the Kangaroos found themselves without a coach. Verhest, who served as secretary in 1997, tried everything: ads in The Bulletin, flyers at US video rental stores, letters to embassies. No luck. "So we tried auto-coaching," says Verhest. "The players took turns. It wasn't pretty. We got killed and narrowly avoided going back to 3rd division." Besides the 8-15 record, there was some good news: a new field was on its way. In 1997, the Kangaroos played every game on the road or on the field of the Lasne Sea Horses. The club was also marred by-infighting among its members.

Promise (1998)

The field was finished but the commune (which runs Fallon) had forgotten to include backstops. "I had to write a letter explaining that backstops were as necessary to baseball as goals are to soccer," says Verhest. But eventually the field was built and soon after the campaign began, there was more good news. Canadian commando Derek Scott, who Verhest had found by calling Canada's mission to Nato, had agreed to coach. In 1998, Verhest says, he "tried to put the pieces back together". For the first time, the Kangaroos recruited outside talent, having big firstbaseman Pierre Cosyn and shortstop Jamal Boumiloud. Unfortunately, they still weren't much of a ballclub. In preseason, they lost to Liège, 20-19. Scott proved momentarily successful, but when restaurant owner (Montana Mike's) Mike LaSalle agreed to coach, Scott resigned. LaSalle did a good job, but never meshed with the team. The second half of the 8-12 season was marked by the arrival of two Americans who would proved keystones for the Kangaroos in 1999. Tony Tsai, 40, was a Procter & Gamble executive who had played at Stanford. Rick Prindle, 33, was a trailing spouse with a passion for the game. Both loved baseball and both coached and played for the Kangaroos as if it were a job. "It was my best experience living in Belgium," says Prindle. "A bunch of friends building a baseball club. What could be better?"

Champions (1999)

Over the 1998-1999 winter, Prindle, Tsai and the Kangaroos worked hard on fundamentals and conditioning. It worked. In 1999, the Kangaroos clicked on all cylinders, storming to a 18-4 record and a DII national title. Tsai was the linchpin, with a 12-2 record on the mound and a .573 batting average. "I hadn't played in 15 years and I was afraid my hamstrings would give out," he recalls. "But it worth it. We really bonded." Two other arrivals were French catcher Stéphane Brissart, 24 and Minnesota thirdbaseman Eric Mckay, 30. With Roggen (cf), Depasse (lf), John Miller (ss-c), Olivier Troussart (1b), Ben Pirroux (rf), Prindle (of), Mark Cepella (of) and De Rede (2b), they played consistent - and winning - baseball. McKay agreed to coach and the team prepared for the next step up.

In the big leagues (2000)

Over the 1999-2000 winter, the Kangaroos made two significant moves. They recruited five Dominican immigrants from Ghent and they signed Connecticut college coach Frank Pericolosi as a player-coach. The first move was a minor disaster, the second brilliant. Cursed with awful defense and weak pitching, the Kangaroos lost 20 of their first 22 games. The new players didn't fit in or play as well as expected. Morale sagged to an all-time low. The club had to scrap together nine guys for every game. Pericolosi started laying the groundwork for brighter things to come. "My focus was to work with the kids as much as possible," he says. "Teaching correct fundamentals is the key to building a winning ballclub." He founded a non-profit foundation, Friends of Baseball, to promote the game in Brussels. The men's team eventually began to play better, winning 7 of their final 12, including three victories over Borgehout. They finished 4-2 in the playoffs, nailing a fifth-place finish. More and more young players began to join. Youngsters like Guillaume Gillet, Pierre Gillet, Jacob Miller, Noé Doutrouloux, Vincent Radelet, Moe Miller, Harold Gérard and Victor Gérard continued their progress under Pericolosi. At the end of the season, Pericolosi - who found a job at the International School of Brussels (ISB) - was named general manager of the club.

Looking ahead (2001)

The Kangaroos' second season in first division was not pretty. Despite the addition of Williams College pitcher Jon Whalen and Christophe Dassy from Namur, the Kangaroos' men's team limped home to a 4-30 finish. The hitting was weak, the defense leaky and pitching brutal. In one game against the Cardinals in Wanze, Pericolosi nailed a three-run homer in the top of the 9th to give Brussels a two-run lead. In the bottom of the 9th, Kangaroo pitchers promptly walked five in a row, out of 24 free passes they issues in the game, and chucked a wild pitch to give it away. The Antwerp Eagles scored 17 runs in one inning at Stade Fallon, during a 21-1 slaughter. "I can't even count the games we lost 20-0," says centerfielder Manu Roggen. Instead the fun from the season came from the Kangaroos' cadet team, which became the first non-Antwerp team to win a youth national championship. Pierre and Guillaume Gillet beat the Mortsel Stars 9-5 in the national championship game. "That made the season worth it," says Whalen, the team's coach. There was one highlight in the men's season, an 18-8 triumph in the finals of the French-speaking cup, the club's second title in three years. The Kangaroos were going back to second division, but not without hope for the future, through the success of their youngest players. A new Kangaroo, Dassy joined in the coaching. During the winter he ran a successful training program.

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