“We recently had a Christmas dinner together,” says Smeets, who played with him for years on the Dutch team. “It was old boys’ bread. Then it’s about the nice things about the children, you reminisce about old memories and you make fun of each other again about things that have happened.”
The worst rough edges
This morning Tjerk even changed his profile picture on WhatsApp to further emphasize the bond between him and Sidney. “That was a photo of my last game as a baseball player at Kinheim. He continued for a while and his team eliminated us. We had known each other for 22 years then. Until the worst rough edges have been removed, I will leave this photo.”
Roelie Henrique also has fond memories of Sidney de Jong. When De Jong played for Amsterdam Pirates in the twilight of his career, Henrique made his breakthrough. “I just can’t understand it,” Henrique says about his death. “It is a big shock in the Dutch baseball world.”