SAN, FRANCISCO ¨C Hensley ¡°Bam-Bam¡± Meulens was the first native of Curacao to make it to the major leagues. He played for the New York Yankees from 1989-1993, and spent the next three years in Japan before joining the Montreal Expos in 1997 and the Arizona Diamondbacks, the final stop of his MLB career, in 1998.
Since Meulens¡¯ debut, 12 players from the small island in the Caribbean Sea have suited up in the majors. Each has had a role in cultivating the baseball culture on the talent-rich island, probably none more so than Andruw Jones.
Jones is easily the most well-known player from Curacao, a constituent country of the Netherlands, and his influence will be hard to miss Monday, when he leads the Netherlands, a team with a number of players who grew up idolizing him, against the Dominican Republic in the semifinals of the 2013 World Baseball Classic.
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