Ganbare Nippon

Good luck at the ATT Park in SFO!!

Ganbarou Nippon in USA!

V3 !!!

Hope they win this thing again. Japan could use a dose of good news right now.

Whoever took the Netherlands "baseball" team seriously, were a bit wrong :).

Oh the Shock, we will take our revenge on the soccer field! :p

ebisen Mar. 13, 2013 - 09:10AM JST

Whoever took the Netherlands "baseball" team seriously, were a bit wrong :).

Tell that to the Cubans and the South Koreans, 2 strong baseball powerhouse who lost to the Netherlands, Cuba lost Twice and were eliminated.

OK, I was wrong then, I'm highly surprised Europe can produce any good baseball teams.

Seiryuu_Dan

this time the Dominican and US taking the game serious this time i think, if they do, no chance japan going anywhere.

ebisen

A lot of members of the team Netherlands come from Curaçao and Aruba, not mainland. The team Italy has some Americans. So, it might not be true to say "Europe can produce good baseball teams"

kaketama: And a lot of the better American pitchers and players are imported from Cuba and South America as well, though of course there's a lot of homegrown talent.

Anyway, good on Japan. Although they had me and a lot of others worried a bit in the beginning by barely squeaking by at the end of each game (save the game against Cuba), they are getting a little better and are pretty consistent overall.

smith, I believe it is one sign of a good team to be able to "squeak out" a win when they need to ! It also shows "GUTS" ! C'mon, Japan ! Keep up the good work ! V3 V3 V3 ! ! ! Yusho wo mezashite, Ganbarre Nippon !

I did not know the Netherlands had enough national baseball players to make a team. It is a bit like Jamaica taking part at Winter Olympics bobsleigh competition.

The most boring sport known to man.

OK, I was wrong then, I'm highly surprised Europe can produce any good baseball teams.

I did not know the Netherlands had enough national baseball players to make a team.

Ranked 6th best team of the planet and world cup winner of 2011, the Dutch team needs to be taken seriously. Especially in our own country, they receive very little money, no big national competition, no big sponsors. Some of the players don't even play in a professional team and work besides the sport in order to make a living. I believe that it has even been so that the players needed to buy their own flight tickets to the world cups because our national baseball association simply did not have the funds for a real good financial backing, I hope that this has changed after their 2011 world cup win. Then again it is a tiny sport here, only about 25.000 players in total from all ages.

Curacao is a small island close to Venezuela. And has a population of about 120.000. We have several ballplayers in the major league. The most famous one is the now retired Andruw Jones. As reaperinc already mentioned the Dutch team has no proffesional players.