Roel de Mon (November 5, 1919 in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

– November 2, 1973 in Haarlem) was a Dutch

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player. He was claimed to be the fastest Dutch

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

of all time. He flourished between 1940 and 1947. He helped to win the

Hoofdklasse The Vierde Divisie, formerly known as Hoofdklasse () is the second-highest league of amateur football in the Netherlands, and the fifth tier in general. Background The league is divided into two sections: Saturday and Sunday. This is a result of ...

national baseball championship four times with SC Haarlem and

Schoten Schoten () is a municipality located in Antwerp Province, Belgium. The municipality only comprises the town of Schoten proper. As of 1 January 2020 Schoten has a total population of 34,311. The total area is which gives a population density of ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

disrupted De Mon's international career. He played only two games internationally against Belgium, and right after the war one against an American-Canadian Army team. An army officer who was a Major League manager in daily life invited Roel de Mon to come and play baseball in the USA. De Mon stayed in the Netherlands to help build up the country after the war. Roel de Mon still possesses two Hoofdklasse records: #Most

strikeout In baseball or softball, a strikeout (or strike-out) occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It usually means that the batter is out. A strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters, and is deno ...

s in one season (1940): 235 strikeouts in 14 matches. (avg. over 16 per game) #Most strikeouts in a single game: 26 (1943 Schoten-VVGA). He fanned 683 batters in 40 games in 1940, 1941 and 1943, averaging over 17 per contest. Roel de Mon’s notorious superfast pitching had a backside: it caused a serious injury to his right arm and he had to end his baseball career in the late 1940s, to become an early living baseball legend. Roel de Mon died in 1973 after serious heart failure, only three days before his 54th birthday. Since 1969, the Roel de Mon Award is given to the best pitcher in the Dutch junior league, which was called the Roel de Mon league till the late 1980s. Winners have included Charles Urbanus jr,

Harry Koster Harry may refer to: TV shows * ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show ...

, Alexander Smit and David Bergman.

References

1919 births 1973 deaths Dutch baseball players Sportspeople from Haarlem {{netherlands-baseball-bio-stub