By Jason Daniels.
The Dutch have a way with athletics – and their culture at large: they get a deep squeeze out of their talents, cherish consensus, and maximize precious resources. Such is life in a pint-sized nation fraught with chronic flooding and threatening climates. In baseball, we see a game that tells the distinct Dutch story – from the people, processes, and progressive actions that fuel Dutch ingenuity and sustain its culture.
“We came in with high expectations. We let it go 6-1 ahead. That was tough for us. Spain [was] just more clutch than we were, which has been the challenge in this game.” – Peter Kwakernaak
I looked up to see Peter Kwakernaak standing next to me at the 2023 European Championships in Brno, Czechia. Leaned over the right field fence on this warm October afternoon, he looked out onto Draci Brno’s field two days after the tournament favorites were eliminated in the semi-finals. As the Dutch team accepted their third-place medals with lukewarm enthusiasm, he attempted to describe to me how the team fell short in a competition they have long dominated.
Kwakernaak has a characteristically clean-cut Dutch look and an affable demeanor. He smiled with a willingness to chat. Despite his team’s defeat, he remained upbeat and supportive of their efforts. A year prior, he had assumed the role of Technical Director for KNBSB, the Dutch baseball federation, taking over from former MLB pitcher Rick van den Hurk. “I felt it was my time and place to step up to the plate,” he noted. As Technical Director, Kwakernaak oversees talent development and the national teams with a goal to perform well in major tournaments.
In both 2013 and 2017, the Dutch surpassed expectations by finishing fourth at the World Baseball Classic. The 2023 European Championships, it was assumed, would see the Dutch march to the finals as they had for the previous 31 years. But 2023 would be different. Despite fielding an experienced squad, the Dutch collapsed late against a strong Spanish side. In many ways, the result revealed more than a defeat: it highlighted an undercurrent of change, the marking of a new era for European baseball.
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State of the Kingdom
The Dutch disappointment at the Euros mirrors the challenges Kwakernaak faces at home. Dutch baseball development programs are robust and the junior national teams perform at high levels, yet enrollment numbers have been declining for years. “700,000 kids in the Netherlands did not reapply for any sports after COVID,” he pointed out. While most would not try baseball anyway, the fact holds that a sport already trailing the more popular choices of soccer, field hockey, and cycling faces a steeper climb.
Kwakernaak has considered slimming down the top Dutch league – the Hoofdklasse – from nine teams to six to ensure top quality. He’s thinking about the 24 A-status Dutch players who receive an allowance from the Dutch Olympic Committee. “In the best possible world, they either play pro in the US or Canada, or else play at the major league level in the Netherlands.” He needs a strong Dutch league to accommodate this vision.
It is a difficult task for a country ranked number seven in the World Baseball Softball Confederation world ratings. He mentions several veteran players will soon pass their peak years, before observing, “We should work on the next generation now that we have some good guys stepping up,” he said. “I expect us to stay in the top 10, which is also what our Olympic Committee wants.”
As the Dutch have done for some time, they will channel resourcefulness and reach across the Atlantic for a baseball shot in the arm. Admitted Kwakernaak: “We are working intensively with Aruba and Curaçao to get more going there on the development side.”
Under 20 million people inhabit the Netherlands, one of Europe’s most densely settled countries, while the larger Kingdom of the Netherlands includes the autonomous Caribbean island territories of Curaçao, Aruba, and Sint Maarten, as well as some smaller islands.
Between the islands, the population is less than half a million. Curaçao, which has recently produced the highest per-capita rate of MLB talent, has fewer than 200,000 people.
“We’ve got some great guys that’ll help us out there,” said Kwakernaak. He especially credits national team coaches, Ben Thijssen and Gene Kingsale, natives of Curaçao and Aruba, respectively. Kingsale, who played over 200 MLB games between 1996-2003 as Aruba’s first big leaguer, highlighted his country’s baseball achievements in a 2008 New York Times article: “We sent five guys to the major leagues in six or seven years, on an island with not even 100,000 people.”
Kwakernaak is focused on sustaining that talent pipeline: “We try to really develop and be smart because we can’t play the number games. That’s the angle we are taking on the development side.”

Going Dutch
The weekend after the Euros, I flew to soggy Amsterdam to catch the Holland Series — the Hoofdklasse playoff finals — between Curaçao Neptunus of Rotterdam and the Amsterdam Pirates.
Several miles west of downtown Amsterdam, the Pirates’ field sits in a large, flat rectangular sports complex encircled by a series of canals. Soccer, tennis, and golf facilities are packaged together like grocery items in a large paper bag and surrounded by more canals.
Reggaeton music played on the batting practice playlist as I walked into the stadium. The ground opened to a few hundred seats packed behind home plate, forming an intimate bowl with a terrace and chatty onlookers on top. Could this could be the highest point in all the Low Country, I wondered? The terrace also holds a clubhouse with a cozy bar and restaurant, the atmosphere pairing the best of amateur club ball with a professional on-field quality.
The day before, I had missed Seb Visser, the Kingdom’s baseball press officer, so after my trip to the baseball stadium, I phoned him to get an overview of baseball in the Netherlands. Speaking from a warm, beach-side vacation, he outlined his role with the Dutch Federation.
“We’ve been trying to build the community and work on the relationship between the homeland and the different parts of the Kingdom,” he said. Visser seems to be in his thirties, and he speaks like someone who has spent his fair time in a dugout. His millennial roots mean he can identify with veteran players, while at the same time understand the shifting media landscape catering to up and coming youth. His task: growing social media accounts and building visibility and public relations — all in the face of shrinking Dutch team sports where baseball in particular has suffered. “We’re such a small sport that it hits us bigger when we lose members,” he conceded.
The Federation has turned to Baseball5 — a miniature version of the sport — to appeal to new and younger audiences. The game requires just five players per team, a small field, and a ball and bases. “That’s something new we’ve been trying to introduce here in schools,” he said. “We [have] had a lot of positive reactions to that.”
Amongst his many hats, he is also making the game more digitally consumable. Dutch baseball used to have a broadcaster, but since that ended, the Federation has boot-strapped efforts through its own streaming platform. Visser’s team airs games live and produces highlight clips. They are currently working on a “control room” that will switch between cameras during the live feed. Signs are encouraging: Visser noted that viewership has been going up.

Just before the first pitch, Jasper Roos struggles to set up the livestream feed. The cords are not long enough. The monitors? Who knew where they were. He starts improvising. The scene sounded stressful, but he maintains a relaxed face. Like many Dutch, Roos has a near flawless American accent. Between his speech and his manner, he feels American. His role on Visser’s team, as he explained it, is to ‘make baseball cool’.
Roos, like Visser, also straddles the experienced and younger generations. He is a full-time teacher and, on the side, a media freelancer with the Dutch Federation. He was surprised this game was being played at all given the unpredictable Dutch weather this time of year. By October, the rain picks up and water levels rise. Canals – like the ones encircling us — are the Dutch way of handling excess water. Without them, land becomes saturated and flood waters threaten cities and countryside — baseball included.
The Dutch have effectively turned their country into one large drainage system. Roos recounted a visiting American college coach who was preparing to cancel baseball practice because it had been raining. Just give it a minute, said the Dutch players. Soon enough, the water vanished and the field was playable, as if no rain had fallen.
Roos loves talking baseball. He is tactful and sharp. The Dutch have been the best team in Europe, he says proudly, and he would like to keep it that way. He points out, however, that the country has had opportunities to bring more fanfare to baseball. A decade ago, there was a plan to turn Hoofddorp, a town just southwest of Amsterdam, into a site for MLB games. Millions of dollars went into its preparation. Roos said organizers flew special dirt (200 tons of blended clay, silt, and gravel, according to the New York Times) in from the U.S. to satisfy strict MLB standards. Amongst other requirements, MLB asked for spacious locker rooms, each fixed with a dozen shower heads to the reaction of Dutch eye-rolling. The Dutch did earn praise for the field’s drainage system. But MLB never came. Elsewhere it was said that politics and disagreements between local leaders got in the way, torpedoing any chance of an MLB base on Dutch soil.
Tune in tomorrow for Part II.