American Sports – NPO Radio 1

We used to only dream about it. We, the American sports fans, the crazy ones who know the Yankees lineup better than the PSV, the people who went to Chicago on vacation to see the White Sox first and then the Cubs. These people returned home with shirts and hats. Did you do anything else? No, baseball every day. its enough.

I knew people who had taken a long trip in the winter and fled for a year, after Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, and did nothing but watch ice hockey. I used to be at the Super Bowl party that took place at the Claus Party House in Hoofddorp for these five Holland football fans.

Believe me, there is nothing wrong with these people, they are just die-hard fans of the American Four Sports. They are students, doctors, groceries, carpenters and professors. They know the difference between the National League and Major League Soccer and they also know what the difference is tight end And prof Running back he is.

Bacilli

No, they are not weird bastards, they are people who picked up or received this germ of American sports somewhere in their youth from a father who often worked in America or a brother who could go to college in Detroit for six months and then every week .. sends scraps from Newspapers to his brothers in the Netherlands. Just test yourself. I’ll keep it very simple.

My name is my professional baseball team from Los Angeles?

What are the Vancouver ice hockey teams called? San Jose? And Denver?

And where do the clubs come from: the net? Patriots? A’s and Panthers?

Who is the current NBA champion?

Few Americans in the sports world do not turn their backs on this.

Immediately shout: Dodgers and angels.

De Cannucks, de Sharks en de Avalanche.

Brooklyn, Boston, Oakland en Miami.

Golden State Warriors.

Really, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know such things. The fun thing (or crazy) is that all these crazy Americans who have studied four sports know the inside, read, and watch it all. I know what I’m talking about.

Video tapes

Forty years ago, a newspaper photo of an American basketball player was reason enough to cut that photo out and keep it for a longer period of time. Twenty years ago, I bought bags full of videos of NBA games and ice hockey stars.

In my lockers there are 100 or more T-shirts from four professional sports from America, in the garage or hanging 65 hats (caps), America’s library has hundreds of big books and no, I haven’t read it all yet. My annual NBA basketball books go back to the 1970s, and I know I must know Larry Bird played at 33, Wayne Gretzky at 99, and Tom Brady at 12.

You’ll say now: It’s crazy. Yes, correctly and with me a few hundred (thousands?) Dutch have this anomaly. Or is it more than that? Maybe a disease. Anyway, the hobby is terribly out of control.

Suspension

Take yesterday. I watched American football and baseball at night, and commented from 1:30, at Ziggo Studio in Hilversum, on the Philadelphia 76-ers-Dallas Mavericks game, and now I have to speed up my message somewhat because it’s live, once again The Houston and the Cleveland baseball players start broadcasting Direct “.

You can, if you wish, and if you can handle a very irregular sleep pattern, for the time being you can pursue all four sports in the Netherlands. Fox Sports plays baseball and soccer and last season the National Hockey League and NBA can be found in Zhego Sport for as little as three games a week.

In our country, there were also monthly magazines on the market in which mainly American sports were found. These blades did not last long. The enthusiast pool was very limited, ads were hard to find, and for the makers it was all about love and waste paper.

The internet helps, most of the crazies (like me) have subscriptions to NBA and MLB games, and I know guys who bring the four major sports into their living room. Very difficult; Every night. They are slowly disconnecting from the social life of our country and have no idea Tuan Hoys or Shord Van Ramshorst. Why should they do that?

Night rest delivery

The only thing that applies to them is: American sports. Delicious on dutch tube. You have to skip a night’s sleep, but it also has a treat in it. You sit, often alone, in a very quiet, dark room with a black eye in the corner. Nothing and no one moves, sometimes the cat turns around in the basket, upset. She does not like baseball. You take a cup, you pee and sleep around five o’clock.

Sometimes your partner asks, half asleep, who won. I say “patriots.” She runs down and says, “Well done, then you can go to sleep quietly now. I’m going for a walk with the POV tomorrow at 8:30.”

It would be perfect for Ziggo and Fox to work together and turn these four sports into great browsers. Through interviews with the best Dutch baseball players, with talents in lectures, with reports and it should be possible to find American Johan Dirksen, right?

An Alabama grumbler can find the right tone for journalism that can teach us critical aspects of this exciting world. So we’re not only found by the rest of the Dutch sports fanatic who, may God fix it, know the NAC and NEC setup by heart.

Above Mart Smits

Mart Smeets is a radio and television broadcaster, journalist, and sports commentator. Every Saturday he considers it to One day Events and stories from Sports Week, and related.

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