The body of the Netherlands article was written by Eli Moore.
Netherlands IBAF Ranking (out of 74) 7th 2013 Pool Korea Austrailia Chinese Taipei 2013 Players of Note Jonathan Schoop, Inf Jurickson Profar, SS Andrelton Simmons, SS Roger Bernadina, OF Andruw Jones, OF 2009 Record 2 - 4, Round 2 2006 Record 1 - 2, Round 1
If you
were going to set out to build a successful national baseball team you probably
wouldn’t select a country with most of its land sitting below sea level. You might consider constant clouds and rain a
drawback as well. However, throw in over
a hundred years of baseball tradition, Caribbean territories charged with
talent, the guts to call the game “honkbal,” and you would get the Netherlands. The 2011 Baseball World Cup champions come
into this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC) looking to improve on their 2009 seventh
place performance. Baseball may not be
considered the national pastime in the Netherlands, but the Dutch national
team is as dangerous as anyone to take home the 2013 WBC crown.
Baseball
was introduced to the Netherlands in 1911 by J. C. G. Grasé, an English teacher
from Amsterdam, after discovering baseball while on vacation in the United
States. Grasé translated the rules of
the game and founded the Dutch Baseball Union in 1912. He was also the founder of Europe’s oldest
baseball club, Quick Amsterdam, in 1913.
The first official competition was played in 1922 with four teams from
Amsterdam: Quick Amsterdam, Ajax (a branch of the famous soccer club), Blue
White (also a soccer club), and Hercules.
Quick Amsterdam became the first Dutch champion of the inaugural season.
In 1925 a US Navy ship made port in Amsterdam. Players from Blue White heard of the visit
and were anxious to test their skills against a group of Americans. The sailors accepted the friendly invitation
and ended up making quite an impression.
After one inning, the Americans led 14-0. After two hours of play the final score was
27-2. At that time Dutch pitchers were
selected solely on who could throw the fastest regardless of control. It was considered unsportsmanlike for batters
to take advantage of lack of control by a pitcher. Reaching base on balls was a humiliation and
it was much more respectable to fly or ground out. Baseball gained popularity and quickly spread
to Harlem later in the 20s. In 1939 a
group of Mormon missionaries from Salt Lake City played in the Dutch league
with the team name Seagulls. They lost
just two games during the season.
Baseball in the Netherlands went through a difficult era
after the German invasion in May 1940 when play was completely disrupted and
materials became scarce. Baseballs were
made of rubber with a cork center by the tire company Vredenstein, and could
only absorb a couple hits before breaking apart. You could imagine old Dutch ball players were
unimpressed by Roy Hobbs busting the guts out of a baseball in the “The
Natural”. Because there were no seams in
the balls some pitchers would simply cut groves in the balls in order to throw
curves, which made them even more fragile.
After World War II the Marshall Plan included baseball materials (bats,
balls, uniforms) to be sent to the Netherlands to build morale. The post war assistance helped keep baseball
alive in the country and the Dutch national team went on to win their first
European title in 1956, held in Rome, Italy.
Since then the Netherlands has been dominant in the continent, winning
20 European championships and nine second place finishes.
Up until 1963, baseball in the Netherlands was ruled by
teams from Amsterdam and Haarlem. That
year Sparta from Rotterdam became champion and won a total of nine national
titles from 1963 to 1974. The
unstoppable trio of players Hudson John, Simon Arrindell, and Hamilton
Richardson, all from the Dutch Antilles, were known as the “magnificent
three”. In 1970 a Dutch born pitcher,
who was raised in California, named Bert Blyleven made the Minnesota Twins
roster and went on to have a hall of fame career (inducted in 2010). The first Dutch Major League Baseball player
who grew up and learned the game in the Netherlands was Win Remmerswaal, who
pitched briefly for the Boston Red Sox in 1979 and 1980 before his MLB career
was cut short by injuries.
The
1980s and 90s were rough decades for Dutch baseball when many teams went bankrupt. The Haarlem Nicols was the most striking
example as the team won 7 pennants in a ten year period but declared bankruptcy
in 1994, only 5 years after their last pennant.
Imagine what the MLB would look like if every small market team folded
because of multiple losing seasons after a pennant. Despite the struggles of Dutch baseball
clubs, the Netherland’s national team expanded its international presence in
the 1980s and 90s by hosting the Baseball World Cup in 1986 and competing in
the 1988 summer Olympics. The
Netherlands best Olympics finish was 5th in both the 1996 and 2000
games.
The WBC
has made the influx of Dutch players to the MLB more apparent as recognizable
Major Leaguers players have played for the Dutch national team including Andruw
Jones (hometown: Willemstad, Curacao, WBC performance: 2006), Sidney Ponson
(Noord, Aruba, 2009), Randall Simon (Willemstad, Curacao, 2006, 2009), Jair
Jurrjens (Willemstad, Curacao, 2006, picked up by the Orioles on Feb 15th), and
Kenley Jansen (Willemstad, Curacao). The
Netherlands finished 11th in the 2006 WBC and 7th in the
2009 WBC. The 2009 performance included
two wins over the very strong Dominican Republic team. However, they lost their second round games
to Venezuela and the United States, knocking them out of the tournament.
While the Dutch showing in 2009 included some impressive
wins, five years earlier the baseball hotbed of Willemstad, Curacao was
exploding with young talent that would help propel the national team’s success
in the following decade. In 2004,
Willemstad won the Little League World Series and were runners up in 2005. From the 2004 championship team, Jonathan
Schoop, who is now in the Orioles organization, joined the national team in
2011 along with six additional players, including Jonathan’s brother Sharlon,
from the small city of Willemstad (population 140,000). Four more players from the Caribbean, a
number of players from around the Netherlands, and one Canadian born member
made up the 24 man roster lead by American manager Brian Farley.
In the 2011 World Cup the Netherlands went 6-1 in round
one pool play including a 19-0 blowout win over Greece and a 7-5 win over
defending World Cup champions the United States. In round two pool play the Dutch team knocked
off Cuba 4-1 giving the Cuban national team their first loss of the
tournament. The two teams would have the
best records from round two pool play and face each other again in the
finals. Cuba would score first in the
4th inning of the championship game on a sacrifice fly by slugger Alfredo
Despaigne driving in Frederich Cepeda.
The Netherlands answered right back with two runs in the bottom of the 4th
on an RBI single by Bryan Engelhardt bringing home Sidney de Jong and another
RBI single by Jonathan Schoop scoring Curt Smith. Netherlands pitchers would not allow any more
hits until the 9th inning when two Cuban batters reached base on
singles. With two outs and two on in a
one run game pinch hitter Hector Olivera lined out to Jonathan Schoop at 3rd
base to close out the win for the Netherlands.
Robbie Cordemans was the winning pitcher with Juan Carlos Sulbaran
pitching an inning of relief and David Bergmans picking up the save. Dutch player Curt Smith was named Cup MVP,
with the most RBIs, and teammate Tom Stuifbergen had the lowest ERA of the
tournament.
The Netherlands finished 2012 ranked 7th in
the IBAF national rankings. They enter
the 2013 WBC with 10 players on their provisional roster returning from the
2011 World Cup championship team including position players Curt Smith and
Jonathan Schoop. Seven of the ten
returners are pitchers, indicating the staff has the potential shut down
opposing offenses in international play.
Additional Major Leaguers Roger Bernadina (Washington Nationals) and
Jurickson Profar (Texas Rangers) are on the provisional roster as well although
Profar is reportedly undecided about participating in the WBC or reporting to
spring training. Andruw Jones is also
listed on the roster and will bring valuable experience to the team having
played in the 2006 WBC, 17 years in the majors, and a season in Japan’s Pacific
League. With the success of their
Caribbean players, consistent championship performances in Europe, and gutsy
honkbal to pull out close games, the Netherlands is sure to be an international
contender for many years in the future.
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