Karl Onzia

Karl Onzia played in the Belgian First Division and for the Belgian national team.

The first season for which Belgian stats are available online (as of 1/26/25) is 1988, when he hit .401/.461/.521. In the aluminum-bat, high-offense league, he was 9th in average, tied for second in hits (8 behind Paul Spoelders) and was 7th with 74 total bases. In 1989, he batted .421/.479/.643. He was among the leaders in average (6th, between Oswald Boermans and Roger De Saedeleer), slugging (9th), hits (53, behind Spoelders and Albert De Lannoy), RBI (35, 3rd, behind De Lannoy and Spoelders), doubles (10, tied for 7th), homers (6, 7th), and total bases (81, 6th, between Boermans and De Saedeleer). For the 1990 Stars, he produced at a .465/.524/.803 clip. He was 5th in average, 6th in slugging, tied Frank Van Droogenbroeck for 5th in hits (37), tied for 8th in RBI (26), tied for 5th in doubles (6), tied for 8th in dingers and 7th in total bases (57).

Moving to the Antwerp Eagles, he helped them win a title, hitting .517/.602/1.022 with 12 homers. He won the batting title by .017 and completed the Triple Crown by leading in RBI (46, 7 ahead of Boermans) and homers (12, tied for first with Mike Rooney). He also made leaderboards in slugging (2nd), runs (48, 2nd, 7 behind Peter Van Walraven), hits (46, 4th), doubles (9, tied for 6th) and total bases (91, 2nd, 8 shy of Van Walraven). He repeated as a league champ in 1992 when he switched to the Brasschaat Braves and he again played a key role. In addition to his batting, he had the challenge of catching Joel McKeon, the first former major leaguer to play in Belgium. He said that for the first year, he couldn't catch him and got bruises all over from the movement on McKeon's forkball. He hit .452/.565/.822. He was 6th in average, 6th in slugging, 10th in hits (33), 10th in RBI (24), 1st in doubles (12, one ahead of Spoelders), tied for 8th in home runs (5) and tied for 6th in total bases (60).

Onzia and the Braves repeated in 1993, he batted .402/.518/.851. He trailed only Van Walraven and Spoelders for 3rd in slugging, was 7th in RBI (34), tied McKeon for 4th in homers (11) and was 8th with 74 total bases (between Frank Mathijs and De Saedeleer). Karl and the Braves rolled to another title in 1994; that year, he was at .518/.591/1.009 and won another batting title (by .039). He was 3rd in slugging, 4th in runs (48), tied Spoelders for the hit lead (58), was second in RBI (56, 5 behind Van Walraven), tied for 6th with 8 doubles, was second with 15 circuit clouts (8 shy of Van Walraven), was second with 113 total bases (14 fewer than Van Walraven) and tied for 4th in HBP (4).

The veteran went deep 15 times again for the champion Braves in 1995. He hit .467/.536/1.033. He was 7th in average, 3rd in slugging (after Edson Ludowika and De Saedeleer), 9th in runs (41), 10th with 43 hits (between Joeri Loykens and Ken Hendrickx), 4th in RBI (48), second in homers (8 behind Ludowika), 5th with 95 total bases (between De Saedeleer and Wim Kerstens). Playing for Belgium in the 1995 European Championship, hitting .385/.400/.564 with 10 runs and 9 RBI in 8 games for the Bronze Medal winners. He tied for 6th in the tourney with two homers, led Belgium in average, tied Edsel Martis and Eddy Dix for 7th in total bases (22), was 8th in hits (15) and led catchers with 9 assists (one ahead of Magnus Jansson). He also helped Brasschaat to 4th place in the 1995 European Cup.

In 1996, it was his sixth straight title, fifth in a row with the Braves. He batted .535/.617/.919 and was among the leaders in average (a distant 2nd, .064 shy of Spoelders), slugging (5th, between Ludowika and Van Walraven), runs (41, tied De Saedeleer for 6th), hits (53, 3rd, after Spoelders and Tonny Verhaert), RBI (tied for 6th), doubles (9, tied for 6th), homers (9, tied Verhaert for 7th), total bases (91, 5th, between Van Walraven and Van Droogenbroeck) and walks (21, tied for 9th). The next year, it was yet another championship; that year, he hit .420/.453/.760 in a part-time role. His run of championships ended in 1998. He hit .400/.524/.760. He did not play in 1999-2000 then was 5-for-9 with a walk, triple and homer for the 2001 Braves, going out in style. Karl was hitting coach of Sparta/Feyenoord in the 2008 Hoofdklasse.