Samen Als Een Zwingelspaan Honkbalclub, more commonly known as SAE Zwingelspaan or just SAE, is a professional baseball club in Zwingelspaan, Houtmansland. They are the 8th team to turn professional in Houtmansland, joining the Topklasse Divisie with Atletisch Bath for the 1907 baseball season following a vote to expand the league from 6 to 8 teams.
SAE was officially founded on 12th of November 1901 but can trace it’s history as far back as 1897 when two groups of farmers situated to the east of the famous Dommelsvoort Mountain started playing friendly games of baseball against one another. The two groups – called Bovenste Heuvel (Top Hill) and Onderste Heuvel (Bottom Hill) in unofficial records of the time – initially started to play during winter as a means to keep fit, but soon found popularity amongst locals in the small town of Lamswaarde who wanted to watch the games that were played nearly every Saturday.
By early 1901, the farmers had a feverish following from its spectators and the fame soon encouraged the players to unite together and play friendly games against other teams from the nearby city of Zwingelspaan. In November of the same year, the club was officially founded as Samen Als Een Zwingelspaan Honkbalclub, which stands for Together As One Zwingelspaan Baseball Club. The team entered the amateur Houtman Serie for the first time in 1902, going on to win the title against ACV Toterfout. SAE repeated the feat 3 years later in 1905 by beating Laurens Alcides.
When the Topklasse Divisie agreed to expand the competition from 6 to 8 teams for the 1907 baseball season, SAE Zwingelspaan accepted the offer in November of 1906, becoming the first team from Zwingelspaan to turn professional.
Following the merger of the two farming teams, SAE moved to their permanent home in the suburb of Velden, an unused parcel of land situated to the west of the main central business district of Zwingelspaan. They continue to play their games out of Velden Ballpark to this day, building a vast ballpark that sees home runs reduced substantially. Triples see a significant increase but the large outfield makes this one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in Houtmansland, despite the outfield wall dropping from 11 feet in left down to 9 from centre field to the right field foul pole to accommodate the bullpens.
The team is affectionately known as De Boeren (The Farmers) and they play in white, dark blue and gold.