The Dutch Kindly Tell the Dominicans to GTFO

The Dutch swapped their clogs for cleats and a funny thing happened on the way to Round 2 of the World Baseball Classic...Team Nederland beat the heavily-favored Dominican Republic twice...TWICE! This is easily the biggest sports upset of the year thus far, but will nonetheless be very under appreciated. Let me help you to appreciate it:

Let's take a look at some comparisons between the two national teams.

--Current MLB Players--
Dominican Republic: 23
The Netherlands: 2

You know who one of the 2 Dutch players are? None other than Sir Sidney Ponson, who recorded the W in the first win over Dominicana. 4 of the Dominican MLB players were all stars last year and I'll give you one guess how many Dutch players were all stars last season. If you said anything higher than zero, please... just leave. With a talent pool this deep, there's no reason the Dominicans should've lost once, or twice for that matter, to the Dutch.

--Career MLB Wins--
Dominicana:518
Nederland:95

Pretty one-sided statistic as it is, but watch what happens when you take away Sidney Ponson's win total:

Nederland: 5

Yep.

Clearly, the Dutch's success can be attributed to the sage wisdom of pitching coach Bert Blyleven.



--Career MLB Homers--

Dominican Republic: 1,801
Netherlands: 82

and my personal favorite:

--2008 MLB Salaries--

DOM: $83.4 million
NED: $0.4 million


Dominicana, you just got served in epic fashion by a country more famous for clog dancing and windmill cleaning than for anything even resembling baseball. This is comparable to Team U.S.A.'s olympic basketball struggles (post dream-team, pre redeem-team). Oh well, maybe this will give Edinson Volquez more time to clean his guns.


But enough making fun of the Dominicans for their failures, I don't want to take anything away from what the Dutch did. They came to play, and now they'll try to keep the dream alive in round 2. I couldn't imagine what would happen if the Dutch somehow found their way in the championship game. Bud Selig would be wise to cancel future World Baseball Classics, because there would be no topping that.

Good luck Netherlands..because as they say: Lekker is slechts een vinger lang!