Dutch success tickles Johnson

Davey Johnson was looking to take a break from baseball. Then a dose of Dutch “honkbal” helped him fall in love with the game again.

Johnson is the manager of the U.S. team at the World Baseball Classic. He managed and coached in the Netherlands earlier this decade, and feels nothing but pride and affection for the surprise team of this tournament.

The Netherlands advanced to the second round of the WBC after a jolting the powerful Dominican Republic with a pair of victories, including a 3-2, 11-inning win Tuesday.

This, after all, was a Dominican roster featuring the likes of David Ortiz, Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez and Pedro Martinez. The Dutch, well, they’re better known for soccer, speedskating and cycling. “Honkbal,” as baseball is called in Dutch, is hardly the national pastime.

Many of the players on the Dutch team also played for Johnson in 2003 and 2004. At that time, he came out of retirement to lead them to a European championship and an Olympic berth.

“I know them real well,” Johnson said Wednesday before the U.S. wrapped up Group C play in Toronto. “There’s some new players but there’s still a lot of the same guys that I had. To see them pull off two great wins against the Dominicans, I was real proud of them.”

The U.S. begins second-round play Saturday night in Miami against Group D winner Puerto Rico. Venezuela, which beat the U.S. 5-3 on Wednesday, will face the Netherlands earlier in the day. The Netherlands lost to Puerto Rico 5-0 on Wednesday.

On Tuesday night, Johnson was eating dinner with coach Mike Schmidt and watching the Netherlands-Dominican Republic game on television. By the time it ended, with a dramatic 11th inning, Johnson was back in his hotel room. As his former players celebrated on the field, his phone rang.

“Mike called me and said ‘I’m so excited I can’t even go to sleep,’ ” Johnson said. “I said, ‘You don’t have to, there’s another game coming on.’ ”

Calling the Netherlands “the Yankees of Europe,” Johnson is less surprised than many by the team’s success. But international achievement is still something a shock for a country where, as Johnson readily admits, professional baseball is “basically a part-time job.”

He said frequent games against Cuba over the years helped steel the Netherlands for tough tests at the WBC.

“Their backs are always against the wall,” Johnson said. “They’ve learned to compete against good teams, good hitters.”

Johnson spent 14 years in the majors and another 14 as a manager, winning a World Series with the New York Mets in 1986. Fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers after the 2000 season, Johnson headed home to Florida, saying he was “completely burned out from baseball.”

Life was golf courses and good times until 2003. Then an agent called. The Netherlands needed someone to step in for Robert Eenhoorn, a one-time Yankees and Angels infielder who was managing the Dutch national team. Eenhoorn’s 6-year-old son, Ryan, was dying of cancer.

“I couldn’t say no,” Johnson said. “I don’t know anybody who could say no under that circumstance.”

The day he arrived, Johnson led his new team through a workout. The next day, he escorted the players to Ryan Eenhoorn’s funeral. Weeks later, with a grieving Robert back in the dugout, the Netherlands beat Greece 2-0 to claim the European title. Johnson became Eenhoorn’s bench coach and stayed with the team through the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Seeing baseball played, and enjoyed, in countries like France, Spain and Russia renewed Johnson’s passion for the game.

“It was a very enjoyable experience,” Johnson said. “To know that these countries even had baseball, I couldn’t believe.”

Cuba 16, Mexico 4 (7): At Mexico City, Yulieski Gourriel, Ariel Pestano and Frederich Cepeda all homered to help Cuba rout Mexico to secure first place in Group B at the World Baseball Classic.

Pestano and Cepeda each hit three-run homers in a nine-run seventh-inning rally to lead Cuba to a win by the mercy rule. Gourriel hit a two-run homer in a five-run fourth and finished with four RBIs.