The Atlanta Braves and Curaçao: a recognition of talent
13 major league baseball players. How on earth did this island nation become a hotbed of major league talent?
It’s almost the stuff of legends and epic children’s stories. Yet the Atlanta Braves wrote this book – and indeed continue to add new chapters long after the initial release. It’s a story about the former Dutch colony of Curaçao and how baseball became a thing.
Curaçao is a slipper-shaped island country roughly 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela – ESE of Aruba in the southern reaches of the Caribbean Sea.
While a ‘country’, it still isn’t entirely independent – Curaçao’s still under the ultimate authority of the Netherlands, yet has autonomy for most of its affairs under a “Unitary parliamentary representative democracy”. As such, they have their own Governor and Prime Minister, yet still answer to Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands.
The Dutch arrived in 1634 after getting their own independence from Spain. The island’s history is quite mixed with lots of meddling by various European powers. Official languages include Dutch, the native Papiamentu, and English. A lot of Spanish is also spoken and most of the population is bilingual… at least.
That population? not even enough to be considered a large city by American standards: roughly 160,000 (+/-)… all in an area of 171 square miles. By comparison, Atlanta’s city limits extend for 134 square miles and pack around 475,000 people into that area… not counting the 1,963 sq mile urban space or the 8,365 sq. mi. metro areas, of course.
Somebody did the math. In the United States, there’s roughly one major league player for every 503,000 people. In the Dominican Republic, it’s about 1 for 125,000 people.
For Curaçao, it’s somewhere around 1 per 21,000.
So how has this small space produced so many major league players? Good question.
Baseball
Andruw Jones wasn’t the first for his home island: the first major league baseball player from Curaçao was another outfielder named Hensley Meulens.
Meulens just preceded Andruw – playing with the Yankees in bit roles from 1989-1993 (getting about half a season’s worth of games and plate appearances in 1991). He got back to the majors in 1997 (Expos) and 1998 (DBacks), but had an under-the-radar career.
Still, he had a big impact back home. As he was quoted on the subject…
"“Twenty-five years ago, all the kids on Curaçao wanted to be me… Seven years later, everyone wanted to be Andruw Jones. Now they all want to be the next great shortstop.”"
But Andruw’s play – beginning even before becoming the #1 prospect in baseball – certainly got the baseballs rolling. And now they have quite enough talent to successfully compete on a world stage.
The Catalyst
Jones’ power was already becoming legendary as an early teen, but it took a scout to find him, and that was a man who had played a bit of baseball in his day, and had a few connections.
That name is Giovanni Viceisza. He’s still listed in Linked In with a Netherlands Antilles home (that term is now obsolete, but had formerly been applied to Curaçao and other Dutch holdings in the Caribbean). Viceisza is the one credited with connecting the Braves with Andruw Jones, who the Braves inked at 16 years old.
After Jones got to the majors and immediately became a World Series phenom, baseball sprung to the forefront in Curaçao, and as a result, it seemed that Atlanta had first dibs on anyone that looked worthy of starting a professional career.
The quality of the fields weren’t exactly the stuff of legends, but perhaps that also prepared all of these great middle infielders for future play. Anybody can catch the ball on a smooth surface. The best don’t need that. Enter Simmons, Profar, Gregorious, and now Albies.
Others Found Out
Those days of running incognito may have passed now, but Atlanta still is obviously getting more than its share of the available talent.
More from Tomahawk Take
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- Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves
Of the 13 major league players produced since 1989, the Braves have had these on their roster:
Among those we’ve missed out on:
It’s safe to say that most of these 13 players haven’t exactly been sitting on the end of the bench, either: there’s All-Stars among them… and Andruw himself has a strong case for the Hall of Fame.
Just imagine how his countrymen would react if that happens.