‘Xother Bogaerts puts the Red Sox on top”, reads the website of Major League Baseball (MLB) under a video where the baseball player hits the ball into the stands of Fenway Park. The Boston Globe is also full of praise for Bogaerts’ home run and The New York Times can only conclude that the Aruban has ended the season of the Yankees. The 29-year-old international of the Dutch ‘Kingdom Team’ is the great leader of the Red Sox – who now face the Tampa Bay Rays in the first round of the play-offs in the American League – but it is hardly news in the Netherlands. “What Bogaerts achieves is really unprecedented,” says Ton Hofstede, who was active as a scout for clubs in the MLB for years. “He is the captain of a very large organization. Unique for someone who plays in Orange.”
Bogaerts’ star has long since risen in North America. Thirteen years ago, he joined the Red Sox as a talented teenager. He surpassed all expectations since his debut on August 20, 2013, against the San Francisco Giants. Bogaerts immediately won the World Series in his first season with the Red Sox. He repeated that feat in 2018. And now the road to the title is open again. The right-handed baseball player is considered one of the best short stops in the MLB, is after Max Verstappen the highest earning Dutch top athlete (104 million euros in six years) and is the most successful athlete that his native island of Aruba produced. “When he plays, all of Aruba watches,” says Hofstede. “There he really is an example for the baseball-playing youth.”
Bogaerts is the figurehead of a very successful generation of professionals, whose roots lie in the Leeward Islands. He As a young player from the southern coastal town of Sint Nicolaas, he looked up to Aruban pros such as Sidney Ponson and Calvin Maduro, but he has now far surpassed his examples. At the same time, the same process took place in Curaçao, where talented baseball players such as Andrelton Simmons, Kenley Jansen, Didi Gregorius, Jurickson Profar and Ozzie Albies followed in the footsteps of Hensley Meulens and Andruw Jones. “If you look at the number of inhabitants and how many players have made it to the Majors, Aruba and Curaçao are the best baseball countries in the world,” says Hofstede, who will soon leave for Curaçao. „In addition to Bogaerts do Jansen [Los Angeles Dodgers] and Albies [Atlanta Braves] now also in the championship. The success has to do with a mix of factors. The fact that they often have athletic bodies and ‘soft hands’ is a big advantage in baseball.”
Twin brother
Baseball is the number one sport on the Dutch islands off the coast of Venezuela. Anyone who dreams of becoming a professional like Bogaerts has to rely on the United States. Those who lose weight in the rat race For a place in the MLB, they often end up in the Dutch premier league. Like Jair Bogaerts, the twin brother of Xander, who dropped out early last season with Hoofddorp Pioniers in the battle for the Holland Series. There is a world of difference between baseball in Boston and Hoofddorp. Not infrequently, the baseball-playing brothers both play for the Dutch team. Each at their own level.
For example, Xander Bogaerts caused a furore at the start of his career by winning the World Cup in Panama in October 2011 as a 19-year-old with the Dutch team. At the time, a World Cup without Major League professionals. Two years later, Bogaerts made his debut as third baseman at the World Baseball Classic – the precursor to the World Cup that will be scheduled again in 2023 and in which the best baseball players in the world can participate. Hofstede: „Bogaerts made it to the last four twice with the best Dutch professionals. But that took place largely out of sight of the Dutch public.”
It’s no different when Bogaerts with the Red Sox in the wildcard game in front of an American crowd of millions puts New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole in the first inning with a homerun. Fenway Park almost explodes as Bogaerts quickly puts the eternal rival in the ‘all-or-nothing contest’ behind. In the sixth inning, he scores his second run, making his share of the 6-2 victory huge. “We have to enjoy this,” he told the media afterwards. “I had never played a match like this before. It had to happen here.”
In Dutch baseball, Bogaerts is cherished as a global player in a world sport, but he is relatively unknown to the general public. “The 30,000 baseball fans in the Netherlands know, of course, how special Bogaerts’ achievements are,” Hofstede explains over the phone. “But when Bogaerts walks through Amsterdam’s Kalverstraat, few will recognize him. He is never in the picture in the election of sportsman of the year. There is a task for the baseball association [KNBSB] to do something with the success of Bogaerts and other top players from Aruba and Curaçao.”
Fantastic examples
Tjerk Smeets, technical director of the KNBSB and former baseball international, experienced Bogaerts at various tournaments. “I first saw him as a shortie at the 2011 World Cup,” explains the former catcher. “I saw then that Bogaerts was an enormous talent, but that he would break through so quickly and come this far is really impressive. Both offensively and defensively, he belongs to the absolute top. It is a pity that there is so little attention for this in the Netherlands.”
Smeets understands that Bogaerts and his contemporaries from the MLB can be fantastic examples for the Dutch youth in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoofddorp or Bussum, but they will always remain in the shadow of football players such as Frenkie de Jong or Memphis Depay. “However great the performance of Bogaerts, we are a football country,” says Smeets. “It is sometimes quite frustrating. We can’t change much about it. A performance by Bogaerts and other professionals for a Dutch audience is virtually impossible. The MLB won’t allow that and, moreover, the insurance premiums would be prohibitive. That is the reality.”