Our History

 

Our club was started in 2002 by Terry Lingenhoel with the help of a team of baseball enthusiast from his home church, The Chapel in Akron, Ohio.
Terry desired to start baseball in Érd to give his 4 children who were raised in Hungary a chance to learn baseball and work together with him in sports ministry, to give Hungarian boys and girls a great team sport to play, and to develop relationships with Hungarians sharing his love for Jesus.  The first “Spring trainings” was advertized in the local newspaper and more that 60 people came out to learn.  After the camp, a men’s team, women’s softball team and cadet team was formed.

In 2003 our club entered our three teams their respective leagues in the Hungarian Baseball and Softball Federation. MOBSSZ

The Érd Baseball Team Club which was established by Tamas Purcl in 2003 and has been growing ever since.

Our Purpose

We seek to develop a baseball community that strives to succeed in the sport of baseball in Hungary and in the rest of the World, while positively transforming lives through serving each other and our community.

Our Values

We believe involving youth and adults in Baseball and Softball has the following positive results:

1)      The players learn the value of community and how to work as a team.

2)      Through coaching, training and participation, the players gain self-confidence, self-control and self-discipline that benefit them in other areas of their lives.

3)      Coaches and trainers are teaching and demonstrating Christian values of serving others, considering others better than themselves and sacrificing for the success of the team.

Our Services

As a club, we are able to offer the following:

1)      We provide training and coaching for our teams.

2)      We register them in leagues and organizing of games for the their enjoyment and to improve their skills.

3)      We attend and organize tournaments with Hungarian and/or foreign teams.

4)      We invite and organize trainers from other countries to hold clinics at least once a year for the benefit of our club and other Hungarian clubs.

5)      We organize summer training camps for Hungarian National youth teams as well as open camps for any players.  We recruit volunteer coaches from the USA  and other countries to come and help.

5)      We help provide necessary baseball equipment through donations or purchase that can be given or sold to our players and given to start new teams in other locations around the country.

Our club continued to grow using the corner of the soccer complex on Ercsi út (pictured above) until 2007.

In August of 2007 the government game gave our Club land in Érd-Ófalu to develop our own field of dreams with a 25 year free lease.

This field now serves the club with an official sized adult field built in 2008 and a little league field built in 2009 and the first regulation softball in the country built in 2012.

 

 

Each year we start our season with a spring training camp to develop new players. The month before before the training we give baseball presentations in the local schools to more than 1500 kids.  During their 45 minute PE class,  we introduce them to the sport and invite them to join one of our club’s teams.

In the summer of 2008, we began also doing summer baseball training camps for players from around the country and for the Hungarian National teams.

In 2010, we started our own Juvenile league with 4 teams who competed weekly for 6 weeks and then had a playoff.  We took the traveling team to the Czech Republic for a tournament.

In 2011, our club added a second Cadet team for boys and girls ages 13-15.  Both men’s teams moved up a division, Aeros to NBI and Pioneers to NBII, both finishing 4th in their respective divisions.

In 2012, we started Little League and fielded two T-ball teams, three Majors teams, a Junior team and 2 Senior teams.

In 2013, our women’s softball team won their first championship as well as our Little League Junior team.

In 2014, our teams won all three Little League Championships. We also built the first official Fast-pitch softball field in Hungary.

We currently have over 130 registered players from ages 6 – 50 playing on 10 teams in 6 leagues which makes us the largest baseball club in Hungary with over 20% of the countries players!

Currently, we are raising money to continue building our field of dreams by building a Training Facility and Club House.  This facility will allow us to establish the first Baseball Academy in Hungary. If you would like to give a gift toward this project go to our donate page or please contact us at: erdbaseballcoach@gmail.com