Dutch national baseball team
The Dutch national baseball team represents the Netherlands in international baseball .
Overview
The Netherlands is traditionally one of the strongest baseball nations in Europe, since 1956 they have won the European baseball championship 21 times and always achieved at least 2nd place. The greatest success was the victory in the 2011 World Baseball Championship against Cuba (2-1 victory in the final), and in 2013 they also made it to the semi-finals in the World Baseball Classic . One reason is the high level of interest in baseball in Dutch-speaking overseas territory ( Sint Maarten , Curaçao and Aruba ), so that top-class players from Major League Baseball such as B. Andruw Jones , Randall Simon , Kenley Jansen , Wladimir Balentien and Jair Jurrjens from Curaçao as well as Xander Bogaerts and Sidney Ponson from Aruba played for the Netherlands. Examples of high achievers born in the Netherlands include: a. Robert Eenhoorn , Eric de Vries , Didi Gregorius or Rikkert Faneyte .
In contrast to many other Dutch national teams, the national jerseys are primarily white or black, but the national color orange is usually the secondary color , e.g. B. on most baseball caps .
successes
- Olympic Games (4 × participation): 5th place (1996)
- World Baseball Classic (3 ×): 1 × 4th place (2013)
- Baseball World Championship (17 ×): World Champion (1 ×: 2011 )
- European baseball championship (30 times): European champions (21 times: 1956–73, 1981, 1985–87, 1993–95, 1992–2007, 2014)