Book Excerpt: “Into Curaçao”

By Jason Daniels.

The following is an excerpt from an upcoming book that explores ten of the top baseball nations around the world. The accounts are told through a collection of vignettes, chance encounters, and a mosaic of travel, culture, and people speaking to baseball’s varied roles, vast impact, and global future. In early 2025, we published a series on the State of Dutch Baseball – specifically focused on the Netherlands. Here, we preview the other side – the baseball-mad Caribbean – and what baseball means for this part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Melissa, my driver from Curaçao’s lone international airport, notices me gazing at Willemstad’s turquoise coast. Tourists file off cruise ships near the docks.

“Mambo Beach is nice,” she offers.

Central Willemstad reveals the influences of Dutch colonialism—rows of gabled, pastel houses align a lit waterfront. Curaçao is home to just over 150,000 people—over 90 percent reside here in the capital.

Melissa asks what I’ll do on the island.

“I’ve come for baseball.”

“Ah, baseball,” she says, grinning in the rearview mirror. “You know Kenley Jansen? He’s the uncle of my children.”

I can’t say I’m surprised. No nation in recent years has produced more MLB players—per-capita—than Curaçao.

Queen Emma Bridge – Willemstad

That night, I walk to Vrutaal Stadium across the bay. Murals of Curaçaoans who made the MLB adorn the 10-foot stadium walls, leading off with Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens, the island’s MLB pioneer. A few portraits down, I find the fresh-minted Hall-of-Famer Andruw Jones, widely considered one of baseball’s greatest defensive centerfielders. From Jones extends the line of Curaçaoan big leaguers he’d inspire—Jansen, Didi Gregorius, Andrelton Simmons, Ozzie Albies, and more.

“He’s on his way to sign with the Tigers,” Melissa says, referring to Jansen. The burly reliever now sits fourth all-time with 476 career MLB saves. Following Andruw Jones’ 2026 induction, Jansen might become Curaçao’s second player inducted into the Hall of Fame.

At the end of the wall, scaffolding rests against Cedanne Rafaela’s finished portrait. Brushes and a dozen cans of paint still sit on the platform. A white wall waits to the side of Rafaela’s picture, ready for the next Curaçao star.

At Mambo Beach, in Willemstad’s east, I meet Lenny Pietersz. He works at the popular beach, enclosed by breakwater and dotted with palm trees and tanning chairs. It’s his first time home after two years playing in Japan and Italy. The supple utility man has just returned from his debut with the national team where Curaçao won the Caribbean Series, a tournament among islands in the Bahamas. Once he’s welcomed one last round of cruise guests, we set off for a snack. Lenny finagles a friendly discount from the Spanish-speaking cashier.

“She says you’re tall,” he tells me. While the Netherlands has the tallest average height on earth, I tower over most in Curaçao.

Lenny jumps from one language to the next. Whether signing with MLB or elsewhere, Curaçaoans have a built-in advantage as they move across the world and adapt to new teams and cultures. Though Dutch is Curaçao’s official language, the most common is Papiamento—an Afro-creole mix of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English. Like many locals, Lenny also speaks Spanish and English.

(A Dodgers assistant who had coached Curaçaoans once told me each language has its use: Papiamento for country; Spanish for love; English for the world; and Dutch for money.)

Mambo Beach

Before Lenny returns to Italy, he’ll compete in Curaçao’s professional league in January. He’ll be joined by many local pros, some already on the island. Just the other day, he ran into Aruban two-time World Series champion Xander Bogaerts.

“You see athletes everywhere here,” he says.

Like Bogaerts, Lenny grew up watching infielders forge a path to the majors. According to Lenny, too many young players follow that path. “We need pitchers!” he says. But few kids on the island like pitching—they want to hit, like the local stars they see on TV.

“Why is baseball here so good?” I ask.

“It’s really all we got to do,” he says, dipping into his ice cream. “As kids, the neighbors hated us hitting and throwing balls against the concrete. We’d skip school just so we could play. Behind the school, we’d take ground balls until practice would start at 5 p.m.”

Later that afternoon, I find a practice at Heintje Kool Ball Park in northwest Willemstad. Atenshon! read street signs leading up to the field. I cross four lanes of highway, scurry past a warehouse of rabid dogs, and approach the overgrown weeds by the gates of Heintje Kool.

Blue-and-yellow concrete steps overlook a fence that’s riddled with rips, as if someone pulled the chain-links apart. A rusted scoreboard, sponsored by Amstel and Coca Cola, rests in right. There’s knee-high grass in center. The infield wears green patches at the corners like a balding man clinging to scraps. Just then, a batted ball bounces to shortstop and skims beneath the fielder’s glove. The fielding actions were smooth—the field of action is not.

The players, in their mid-teens, form Curaçao’s prospect league—the next generation of pros on the island. Two groups scrimmage on the field, while another stretches behind four lanes of batting nets. Down the right-field corner, pitchers execute plyometrics, sprints, and weight training. Along the left-field line, a lanky teen drives a sledgehammer into a tire. MLB gear—Braves, Yankees, Red Sox—flashes across the field.

I’m here to meet their coach, former big leaguer Yurendell De Caster. Between innings, De Caster launches fungos in a cut-off White Sox hoodie. His raspy Papiamento echoes into the stands. I catch De Caster after training in the parking lot. We shake hands then he washes up under a dugout spit.

“Come back tomorrow at 7 a.m.,” De Caster says, still packing up. “The pro guys are gonna be here. At 1 [p.m.], you can catch [Jurickson] Profar and [Jonathan] Schoop,” a current and former big leaguer, putting in offseason work. The prospects will be back at 4 p.m.

“All the matches were last weekend,” one coach lamented before I’d arrived in Curaçao. Another told me little baseball would be transpiring this offseason.

The next morning, Melissa takes me back to Heintje Kool.

“How are your baseball visits?” she asks. “You know, you should go to Curaçao Baseball Week in January.”

Founded by Hensley Meulens, the event has one goal: “To bring kids in Curaçao closer to their baseball legends.” Albies, Gregorius, Jansen, Profar, Simmons—they’ll all come home to give back.

I’d rather chat baseball on island time, but I recently learned the US was seizing oil tankers and striking vessels in its push to oust Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

“On a clear day, you can see Venezuela,” Melissa tells me.

After the Dutch abolished slavery in 1863, they shifted their Caribbean focus to Venezuelan oil. In 1918, they built a refinery in Curaçao where crude revenues boosted the local economy. Several decades ago, Venezuelan and Dominican workers arrived with baseball and the game took off. Once refinery operations ceased in 2019, baseball claimed its place as Curaçao’s top export.

At shortstop, De Caster is refining four teens. He wears a Curaçao national shirt and Texas Rangers bucket cap. He’s joined by a short assistant holding a fungo and another in a cut-off who looks like a defensive end. One by one, the boys flash their reflexes, scoop, and fire to a net at first.

“Transfer high,” the head coach reminds them with a jerk of the hands.

De Caster looks to the stands and waves me onto the field. I point to myself, seeing no one else around. He waves harder.

“These are the young ones,” he tells me as I meet him in the infield.

“How do they look?”

“Good. We need to make more shortstops.”

He points to several guys in the batting nets. “Those are the pros. You can watch from the dugout.”

The infielders move to second base then shift behind the mound to take cut-off throws to third. As more fungos spit out, De Caster harps on technique in gravelly tones. With fluid hips and hands, the fielders manage the unruly bounces. When the boys come in for water, each bumps my fist and says, “Good morning.”

As they jog back out, I poke through a back room holding an arsenal of bases, balls, tees—and every coach’s favorite—buckets. I settle on a bench next to a vending machine. Not all Curaçao fields are well-stocked, but there’s promise at Heintje Kool.

De Caster ends training and walks my way.

“You see the Little League World Series?” he asks, gesturing down the line. “He played there, and he played there.” These boys are too young to be big leaguers, but MLB teams are already laying claim. “He’s signed to the Twins; he’s signed to the Rangers; he’s signed to the Marlins.” Each kid wears a hat of his to-be team. Two are members of the 2027 signing class. The last one is class of 2030.

“They just train here with me,” he says. “We need more shortstops.”

“What’s the secret to making them?”

 “Train.”

De Caster waves me into his van and says he’s taking me to the gym. He nods to a quiet boy in the back: “My son,” he says.

“Did you play ball?” he asks.

I tell him about pitching in Australia and Europe.

“I played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Dutch national team in the WBC,” De Caster says. Over 17 pro seasons, he manned every defensive position except catcher. At 46, he carries trim muscle—only the slight hitch in his gait suggests his playing days are done.

At the gym, I meet De Caster’s fungo man, Bárbaro. “Acere,” De Caster calls him— “buddy” in Bárbaro’s native Cuba. Speaking Spanish, Bárbaro tells me about his academy in Cienfuegos that helped guys like Yoan Moncada reach the MLB.

“I’m here on contract for now,” he says with a big smile. I remark how great it is to have pros with the kids. He pats his mouth: “Sííí!”

He reaches for my shoulder. “Curaçaons will play here or there in the US and still come back to train with the kids.”

Meanwhile, the young infielders do pullups, spotted by their coaches. On the back turf, minor leaguers find more plyometrics: high knees, ladder jumps, short sprints. Before long, the young kids join.

In the afternoon, I walk back to Heintje Kool. A ride from Melissa would have been handy as I pass a canine carcass and a lunging dog that nearly jolts me into highway traffic. I arrive to find the young shortstops unleashing wood in the cages. Between swings, they wait for their turn, composed. On the back turf, pitchers undergo balance drills with med balls and PVC pipes.

On the mainland, the Dutch have tidy facilities, solar panels, and motor learning. Here, I see none of that. The Netherlands has more than 100 times the population of Curaçao and nearly 400 times its GDP. And yet Curaçao’s baseball is far more advanced. In all my travels, I’ve yet to see a better collection of coaching, drive, and technique.

“So, this is your job? To travel around the world?” De Caster asks. “Or hobby?”

I tell him a hobby, and he smiles. “So, you follow Curaçao?”

De Caster has also kept pace with world baseball.

“I see the Japanese players,” he says. “They’re doing good.”

“We need to get that way.”

…

Note from Editor: Jason will be on the ground in San Juan for the World Baseball Classic before joining me in Miami, with updates on the website. You can find his previous work here [link]. Also check out our WBC preview for the Netherlands [link].