It’s Upsets Like This Which Gives Hope To All The Small Baseball Nations

As an Englishman, I was unsurprisingly disappointed when the
Great Britain National Team  were again
overlooked for the World Baseball Classic, especially after the results of the
2007 European Championships which saw Great Britain come in runners-up while
the Italians finished  7^th (although
to be fair, the Italians did defeat us in the group stage 6-0). Obviously, the
reason were that GB didn’t have the recent history of success in international
competition and didn’t feature in the 2006 Classic, but some international
recognition of the achievement would have been nice.

However, after watching some of the Pool A matches in Japan
and seeing the results from the others, I was very glad Team GB weren’t there.  With Korea destroying Chinese Taipei 9-0 and
then themselves being on the wrong end of a 14-2 destruction by Japan, it
seemed the gulf in international baseball between the superstar-loaded nations
and the smaller countries with few big names (if any) was as wide as ever.

Then came today’s Pool D early game, featuring The
Netherlands and the Dominican Republic. On the face of it this seemed like it
would another lop-sided game which would most likely feature a mercy-rule
finish. Despite being the reigning European champions (going unbeaten through
the tournament) and finishing fourth at the 2007 Baseball World Cup, they were
facing a formidable Dominican Republic team, which even without the might A-Rod,
still had a starting line-up full of major leaguers and still had the talent
and experience to take the game by the scruff of the neck and not let the Dutch
have even a sniff of victory.

Luckily, mine (and I assume much of the baseball world’s)
thoughts were wrong and the Dutchmen were 3-0 in the top of the first, albeit partly
down to errors from the Dominicans and some good luck.  Whatever you say about the top of the 1^st
though, the key thing about baseball is taking your chances and The Netherlands
certainly did that. Despite this, I still believe it’d be a very one-sided
match up and with the Dominicans getting two runners in scoring positions
almost immediately, I thought my fears were coming true.

Luckily, The Netherlands held on, despite much pressure and a
lack of offensive production, and captured a famous victory over a very strong
team. This victory should give hope to many of the other smaller baseball
nations in the competition and many others who aren’t featuring in this classic.
Before this game, I was thinking of giving much of the Classic a miss, with the
one-sided results coming in from Tokyo. However, The Netherlands today have
given yet another example of just why baseball is so good and why you should
always keep watching.