Kingdom Games

The Kingdom Games is a biennial tournament (used to be annual) between young athletes from the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was first held in 1965. Baseball, as well as softball, is one of the sports in the tournament.

1965-1974 participating countries: Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Surinam

1975-1978 break as a result of the independence of Surinam

1979-1983 participating countries: Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles

1984-1994 games discontinued, Aruba becomes a constituent country in its own right.

1995-2007 games reinstated, now biannual.

In 2009 the Netherlands Antilles is in a stage of breaking up, but as far as the games are concerned that will not matter and the former constituent country will still play ball on Aruba. The Kingdom Games are quite popular on Aruba and the NA-islands, but in the Netherlands (with its much larger population) it's rather a non-event, unlike the Caribbean countries it is not bringing its very best to the event (no boys in training by the professional soccer teams, for instance). This does keep the strength of the Netherlands somewhat back and thus the results are not a reliable indicator for the relative strength of the coming generation of a constituent country.