Fortuna Juemen, usually known as Fortuna, is a professional baseball team located in Juemen on Janszoon Island. They were the first team accepted in to the Günsovölk Baseball-Bund based outside of Gilsemans Islands.
Founded on the 23rd of September 1894 by US ex-pat and local farmer Glen Hendriks for his adult son and his friends to play baseball, the team played games on disused low-lying farmland in amongst windmills giving them the rather apt nickname Die Windmühlen or, The Windmills.
After joining the newly founded Janszoonliga in 1895, the team finished third in it’s inaugural year, before winning the titles in 1896 and 1897. Glen Hendriks, eager to show-off his son’s team nationally, toured Gilsemans Islands throughout summer 1896 and into February 1897, creating interest from Günsovölk Baseball-Bund member clubs who encouraged him to seek membership. Intending to become the first team outside of Gilsemans Islands to participate in the Baseball-Pokal from 1898, the tournament collapsed shortly after and Die Windmühlen voted in favor of the creation of the Baseball Meisterschaft, becoming founding members.
Fortuna Juemen won it’s first national title in the 1900 baseball season, clinching the Baseball Meisterschaft with a record of 44-22.
Despite being early advocates for the game to remain amateur, the club was forced to turn professional in 1898, and Juemen town council granted the team full ownership of a block of unused land known as Fliederplatz in a busy industrial estate, which is where the teams stadium still stands today amongst a trendy entertainment neighborhood. Three-and-a-half meter high walls surround this hitter-friendly park that suits right-handed batters the most, despite winds usually blowing from right to left.