1995 European Championships

Held in Haarlem, the 1995 European Championships were the 14th consecutive European Championships in which the top two teams were the Italian national team and Dutch national team. The MVP was Dutch player Johnny Balentina.

The Netherlands lost its first match with Italy but took three in a row in the Gold Medal games to win it (by scores of 13-7, 13-10 and 7-4). The 8-1 Dutch team was led by Johnny Balentina (.525/~.568/.600, the tourney leader with 17 runs and 10 steals), Eric de Bruin (.444/~.634/.519, the tourney leader with 14 walks) and Edsel Martis (.435/~.606/.957, 17 RBI) on offense. They hit .346 to make up for a 4.56 ERA.

Italy had Dante Carbini (2-0, 2.84) to lead their staff. Offensively, big bats were swung by Enrico Vecchi (.571/~.657/.643), Luigi Carrozza (.500/~.541/.912, 4 HR, 17 RBI) and Andrea Evangelisti (.471/~.500/.706). Roberto de Franceschi (.348/~.444/.478) and Massimiliano Masin (1-1, 6.00) made the tourney All-Star team as well.

The Belgian national team won Bronze as Frank Mathys was 3-0 with a 3.33 ERA.

After that, the standings were:

• 4.  Spain
• 5.  France
• 6.  Germany
• 7.  Sweden
• 8.  Russia
• 9.  Ukraine
• 10.  Slovenia

Top performers from those teams were France's Arnaud Fau (.533/~.611/1.100), who led in homers (5) and tied for the RBI lead (17) and Russia's Evgeny Puchkov, who hit .500. Both made the tourney All-Star team.

All-Star Team

• C: Johnny Balentina, Netherlands
• 1B: Eric de Bruin, Netherlands
• 2B: Stephan Jäger, Germany
• SS: Andrea Evangelisti, Italy
• 3B: Evgeny Puchkov, Russia
• OF: Oscar Rebolleda, Spain
• OF: Roberto de Franceschi, Italy
• OF: Arnaud Fau, France
• DH: Edsel Martis, Netherlands
• P: Massimiliano Masin, Italy

Also see 1995 European Championship (Rosters)

Source: Harry Wedemeijer's international baseball statistics