Dutch professional baseball outfielder Gregory Anthony Halman played with the Seattle Mariners from 2010 until his untimely death in Rotterdam on November 21, 2011. He was only twenty-four years old. Jason, Halman’s brother, was first detained in relation to the stabbing but was thereafter found not guilty because of a transient mental illness.
At sixteen, Halman started playing baseball with the Dutch major league Corendon Kinheim team in Haarlem. In the 2009 World Baseball Classic, he again played for the Netherlands. He began his professional career with the rookie-level Arizona League Mariners after being signed by the Seattle Mariners in 2004 as a non-drafted free agent.
Early on, Halman displayed a lot of promise as he hit.438 against left-handed pitchers and.219 against right-handed ones. The Mariners awarded him Minor League Player of the Year in 2009 after he blasted 29 home runs between Double-A West Tennessee and High-A High Desert.**
Halman also experienced misfortune in his personal life. Before instilling his sons with his love of baseball, Eddy Halman was a professional baseball player in Aruba and a semi-professional in the Netherlands. But Eddy’s temperament made him see conspiracies and bad luck everywhere he went, and his sons were affected by this too. As Eddy did time in prison for smashing windows in Hanny Suidgeest’s home out of jealously over her dating, the family witnessed violence firsthand.
