It's Classic baseball ... in any language ... for multilingual Netherlands

By the time Chadwick Tromp started playing catcher at age 11, he could already speak multiple languages.

Growing up in Aruba, Tromp was fluent in Papiamento -- an Afro-Portuguese Creole language he spoke at home. At school, he learned English and Spanish. All other subjects were taught in Dutch, the language used for laws and other official communications on the island formerly a part of the Netherlands Antilles.

Being quadrilingual is par for the course in the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao). But when Tromp and his teammates -- including Xander Bogaerts, Kenley Jansen, Didi Gregorius, Ozzie Albies, Jurickson Profar and Ceddanne Rafaela, all of whom also speak Papiamento, English, Dutch and Spanish -- suit up for the Kingdom of the Netherlands in this year’s World Baseball Classic, it will mean more.

“It's very special [to communicate with your WBC teammates], because you feel like you're home because you're speaking a language that nobody [else] actually understands: Papiamento,” Tromp said. “Dutch is also not super common. ... So you kind of feel like you're home because you can relate [to each other]. All those guys also speak multiple languages.”

Bringing together players from the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and the United States, the Kingdom of the Netherlands team is a microcosm of the spirit of the Classic, a tournament that rallies talent from over 20 countries and every continent except for Antarctica around a shared passion for baseball.

And in a sport like baseball that requires regular communication between players from a variety of backgrounds, being a polyglot is an asset.

“It makes you be able to do more stuff,” Bogaerts told MLB.com “... Just reading stuff, like off the [scoreboard], you’ve got to do it in all these languages. But it’s fun, man. Like, they know they can come up to you or you can go up to them and have a conversation, as opposed to, like, you need someone else [like an interpreter] to do that.”

In a global tournament like the WBC that asks players from different cultures to jell around a championship mentality in a matter of days, that asset can become a superpower. Veteran leaders like Bogaerts (playing in his fourth Classic in 2026) and Gregorius (playing in his third) perform crucial roles in building camaraderie through their facility with languages.

“Didi Gregorius, he would speak English to all the Americans, but effortlessly switch to Papiamento with the guys from Curaçao [in the 2023 WBC]. And then … Spanish [with the guys who speak Spanish], and then English with the coaches … and then Dutch with all the guys from the Netherlands,” recalled Arij Fransen, a right-hander and former Reds prospect from Deventer, Netherlands, who is on the WBC roster again this year. “So he would just effortlessly switch all languages depending on the person you talk to. So [you] felt really included if he just spoke your native language to you, knowing [that] he spoke all these other languages too.”

During gameplay, communication becomes a bit more streamlined. English is, for the most part, the go-to language for the team so that everyone can understand each other, though there are exceptions.

“If I really want to say something [to my pitcher] and it's like in the heat of the moment and I don't want the other team to understand,” Tromp said, “I'll speak it in Dutch.”

Rigorous preparation also is essential for such a diverse roster, especially when it comes to pitcher-catcher communication. As the Netherlands’ primary backstop, Tromp will work with hurlers from all four countries represented on the roster and will come into the tournament with a thorough understanding of each pitcher’s scouting report.

That sort of familiarity proved crucial for Shairon Martis, a Curaçaoan right-hander who became a legend in 2006, when he threw the first no-hitter in Classic history. Pitching in his first WBC that year, Martis wasn’t as fluent in Dutch as he is today. But that was no problem for him and Dutch catcher Sidney de Jong.

“To be such a young guy and then have a good communication with my catcher -- he saw me also in Curaçao, so he knew what pitches I throw, what situation I [like to] throw my offspeed,” said Martis, who has played in every WBC except for 2009. “I was cruising, so I wasn't shaking him off, nothing like that. So we were on the same page.”

Those relationships don’t only get built on the field and in the clubhouse. The Netherlands squad also connects through the universal languages of playing games and sharing meals.

During the Classic, the team has a gaming room where the players hang out and shoot the breeze over PlayStation and FIFA -- an immediate way to bond in a tournament that flies by.

They also go out to dinner with their teammates, friends and families. Often, the well-paid big leaguers will pick up the tab to let everyone else focus on getting to know each other. Other times, the guy with the most hits or RBIs pays.

“[Hanging out like that] also makes our team great,” Tromp said, “because everybody’s so locked in on each other.”

Ultimately, that kind of close-knit community is what makes being a part of the Netherlands team so meaningful. For many, the Classic represents a long-awaited opportunity to play alongside guys with whom they have shared so much -- a language, a country, a heritage -- but rarely a baseball field or jersey.

“It’s just fun to be able to have those experiences,” Bogaerts told MLB.com. “And, you know, you can talk about your country a little bit, your childhood, and stuff like that in your own language. ... I remember my first couple [Classics] was me, Profar, [others,] and we played against each other growing up, and now [the WBC] is probably the only time we do get to play with each other.”

Even for those who did not grow up together, the Netherlands’ unique clubhouse facilitates a deeper camaraderie.

“By having the ability to express yourself in multiple languages, it also makes you understand their culture a little bit more,” Fransen said. “I do think that’s a reason why ... everybody kind of accepts each other, like in the team, because we all come from different backgrounds but also understand and get people better.

“Because everybody has at least one language [in common] … you can talk with everybody. You don’t group up.”

And in a clubhouse with at least four different languages being spoken, there’s one language that transcends them all.

“It’s a cliché thing,” Fransen said. “But even though you may speak a different language, the game of baseball speaks its own language.”

Padres beat reporter AJ Cassavell contributed reporting for this story.