Former teammates speak with great fondness about the period when they were on the field with Sidney de Jong. They praise his leadership and his presence on and off the field. “He managed to involve the entire team and empower everyone. He was someone you looked up to,” says baseball player Kalian Sams. He worked with De Jong for about fifteen years. First as a teammate and later under his leadership as a coach.
“I have a lot of admiration for players who have a great career and then invest time to take young players to a higher level,” says former teammate with the Dutch baseball team Eelco Jansen. Two young catchers trained by De Jong confirm this. “He was a different kind of trainer than other trainers. You could tell that he really enjoyed helping us and he did everything for that,” they say.