Netherlands pitcher hails from a tropical paradise

You can probably imagine what it would be like to grow up playing baseball in Sint Maarten.

Gorgeous hillsides, ocean views, playing the game in places not many kids play the game in.

“Yeah, we played it around our house, we’d also go to the beach and play it in the sand,” Netherlands pitcher Franklin Van Gurp told me. “You know, just growing up and having fun."

Only a handful of players have ever made the pros from the delightful 13.1-square mile Dutch Caribbean island and Van Gurp, a pitcher for Team Netherlands in this year’s World Baseball Classic, is one of them. He was drafted by the Giants in 2017 and was most recently with the Mariners in 2021. He played Indy ball last season and, afterwards, in the Dominican Winter League.

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Van Gurp said he probably could’ve played the more popular cricket growing up, but he didn’t like that you had to use your bare hands. And more importantly, well, his family wouldn’t have it.

“My background, my mom’s full Dominican,” Van Gurp said. “She kind was like, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna be a baseball player.’”

Having those Dominican genes, Van Gurp idolized Pedro Martinez.

“Yeah I liked Pedro and I liked Iván Rodriguez,” he told me. “I used to be a catcher. They were both super confident dudes.”

Besides building makeshift fields on the beaches, Van Gurp and his friends would play with tennis balls and use their fists as bats on elementary school playgrounds. They moved on to T-ball, Pony Leagues and Little League. He says there are just three fields on the island, all scaled for 11-12 year-old kids. One, in the capital Phillipsburg, was recently redone with a new turf surface.

One of the other fields, though, has a sort of tropical touch to it.

“One is actually on a pond,” Van Gurp told me. “The pond’s in the outfield, but the field was built on top of the pond.”

The area is known as Pond Island, and home runs hit over the fence would land in the water. Although Van Gurp admits he never deposited one over the boundary.

“No,” he laughed. “I was younger, I was way too young.”

There aren’t really older leagues after Little League so like many other young players who want to pursue the sport, Van Gurp moved to the Dominican Republic around 5th or 6th grade. He lived there until he was 17, got accepted at Florida International University to play ball and then was drafted into the pros from there -- a move that definitely got in some ink in the local Sint Maarten press.

Van Gurp says he loves to go back to visit; most of his father's family is still there. It's a nice break from the grind of pro baseball in the United States.

"It's beautiful, man, the beaches, oh my god," Van Gurp said. "It's incredible. The food. It's known for being The Friendliest Island for a reason."

He also wants to be able to go back, at some point, and help spread the game of baseball back home. It helped "mold him into the man he is today," and he thinks it can benefit other kids the same way.

For now, though, the side-armed reliever is hoping to help his team get out of Pool A and on to Tokyo. Netherlands is one of the favorites in its group, and the 27-year-old thinks they have a shot at winning the whole thing.

"Our chances are really good," he said. "The team chemistry, man, these guys have always played together. We bond together. We take every battle together."

Van Gurp's mom is in Switzerland and his sister is in the Dominican. They'll both be setting alarms to tune in to see Franklin play. There will also be a game-watch on-island. A place probably most of us all wish we could see the Classic from.

"Yeah, yeah, my uncle has a sports bar out there in Sint Maarten," Van Gurp said. "He'll have all the games running."