Ben Richardson

• Bats Right, Throws Right

• Born August 12, 1948 in Aruba

Biographical Information

Outfielder-pitcher Ben Richardson was a long-time star in the Dutch Hoofdklasse, overlapping there with Hamilton Richardson (no apparent relation; they were born in different parts of the Antilles), who also starred there.

Ben Richardson joined Ajax in 1966 then moved to the Giants Diemen and Schoten. He won three home run titles in the Hoofdklasse. The Dutch Wikipedia is inconsistent, saying he joined the Dutch national team in 1974 but also saying he was with them for the 1973 European Championship. It is conclusive that he played for the Dutch when they won Silver in the 1975 European Championship. In the 1976 Haarlem Baseball Week, he was named the Dutch MVP while Sun-hee Lee was named the event's overall MVP.

Richardson won Silver again in the 1977 European Championship. He was again the Dutch MVP in the 1978 Haarlem Baseball Week, joining Hamilton Richardson and Boudewijn Maat as two-time winners; Mitsugu Kobayashi was the overall MVP that year. In the 1978 Amateur World Series, he hit .231/.250/.462 and drove in 13 in ten games. The rest of the team had 24 RBI (Charles Urbanus Jr. was second at 5) and he had 3 of their 4 homers (Wim Hageman had the other one). He tied Urbanus for the best slugging of the team's regulars and tied Paul Smit for the most runs (6). For the event, he tied Luis Casanova, Kyoichi Kikuchi and Pedro José Rodríguez, Sr. for 4th in dingers (trailing Antonio Muñoz, Ernesto López and Tim Wallach) and tied Hiromitsu Ochiai for 3rd in RBI (after Muñoz and Wallach).

He was on the Netherlands when they won Silver in the 1979 European Championship.

Sources

• Defunct IBAF site
• Haarlem Baseball Week site
• Dutch Wikipedia