The Netherlands wins! The Netherlands wins!

As a proud Dutchman (my mother’s maiden name is Van Deventer), I’m thrilled with The Netherlands’ huge upset win Tuesday over the heavily favored team from the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic.

The Dominicans, stacked with Major League Baseball stars (Hanley Ramirez, José Reyes, Miguel Tejada, David Ortiz, etc.), were supposed to plow easily through Pool D in the international tournament. But The Netherlands, whose biggest names are Randall Simon, Gene Kingsale and Rick VandenHurk, beat them not once, but twice, and now the Dutch team is heading to Miami for the second round.

It would have been cool for The Netherlands to play in San Diego next week, but San Diego’s hosting teams from Pools A and B while Miami is where teams emerging from Pools C and D will play. The U.S. team, which has beaten Canada and Venezuela to move on to Round 2, will play in Miami, along with Puerto Rico and Venezuela. So far heading to San Diego are Japan and Korea. They’ll be joined by two teams from among Cuba, Mexico and Australia. If you read this Wednesday morning, either Cuba or Australia will have advanced to Petco Park (my money’s on Cuba, although the Aussies really put a beat-down on the Mexicans the other day.

You might recall that San Diego hosted the WBC finals three years ago (Japan beat Cuba to win it all). This year’s finals will be played at Dodger Stadium in L.A.

In case you care, the San Diego Padres players on WBC teams that are still alive (and, therefore, not at spring training in Arizona) are Gonzalez brothers Adrian and Edgar (Mexico), Scott Hairston (Mexico), and Jake Peavy and Heath Bell (U.S.).

Back to The Netherlands, though—I was surprised to see so many dark-complected players on the Dutch team. That’s because Aruba and the Antilles, in the Caribbean, are Dutch territories. Did you know that? I didn’t. So, even if you don’t give a damn about baseball, at least you learned something, right?

Update: Cuba just beat Australia 5-4, so the Cubans are coming to San Diego. Australia and Mexico play tomorrow to determine the fourth and final team to play second round games at Petco Park.