Jesse Maduro receives royal honor for decades of service to Tex Town Tigers

Jesse Maduro’s latest honor was never just about one medal. When burgemeester Roelof Bleeker placed the insignia of Lid in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau on him in Enschede on Friday, 24 April 2026, Tex Town Tigers was recognizing the volunteer spine that has kept the club alive for decades.

At 81, Maduro has spent most of his adult life inside the club and around the regional game. Tex Town Tigers had already named him an honorary member on 2 April 2022, and a year later he received a KNBSB distinction. The royal honor completed a sequence of recognition that matches the scale of his contribution: from club servant to bond-recognized figure to a man the club now describes as one of the most important promoters of baseball and softball in Twente.

His work reached far beyond the scorebook. In the 1970s, Maduro served as secretary and handled major club business at a time when Tex Town Tigers was still building its foundations. He helped bring in the first sponsorship money, contributed to financing the clubhouse at Stadsveld-Noord, and played a role in setting up men’s softball. He also organized flea markets, worked on recruiting young softball players, and helped found several baseball and softball clubs across Twente, widening the sport’s footprint well beyond one park in Enschede.

That kind of labor is the hidden infrastructure of amateur baseball: the people who write the letters, secure the sponsors, raise the money, and keep the lights on long before a lineup card is filled out. Maduro did that work for years, and he did not stop there. For a long stretch he was also the voice of the park, serving as announcer at baseball and softball games and giving Tex Town Tigers a sound as familiar as the crack of the bat. Even now, the club still calls him an involved member and a key club man.

The meaning of the distinction reaches beyond one evening in Enschede. A Lid in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau is the sixth grade in the Order of Orange-Nassau, reserved for people who have made themselves especially meritorious to society. In Maduro’s case, that society is the baseball and softball community of Twente, built one fundraiser, one broadcast, and one volunteer season at a time.