Olympics To WBC, Cordemans Has Seen It All

At 42 years old, Rob Cordemans has experienced the highs and lows of international baseball, seeing its growth and growing pains.

- John Manuel

He was on the Netherlands’ top-level team as early as 1995, and a year later he was pitching in the Atlanta Olympics. If that feels like a lifetime ago, well, at least R.A. Dickey was in those Olympics too.

“We were pitching against those great Cuban players, like (Orestes) Kindelan or (Omar) Linares, and they were using metal bats,” Cordemans said. “We didn’t know any better.” When asked in jest how those teams insured their players, Cordemans replied, “In the Netherlands, we don’t worry about such things.”

So much has changed since Cordemans first suited up for the Dutch national team, from the bats to the pros—first minor leaguers, then big leaguers—in international play. He has spent the last 22 years as his team’s ace pitcher, but most North American fans rarely see his teams. He pitched in every Olympics from 1996-2008, and this will be his fourth World Baseball Classic.

While baseball has been kicked out of the Olympics, only to be reinstated for 2020 in Tokyo, Cordemans has no question about which event he prefers.

“It’s the Classic, no question,” he said in a telephone interview from Arizona, where he was helping the Dutch get ready for another WBC run. “The Classic is all baseball. In the Olympics, you’re in the village, and there’s so much going on. It’s fun, but it’s a lot of other sports; it’s not run like the Classic, where everything is about baseball.

“I mean the Olympics are great but the players who play in the Classic are better. It’s just a better tournament, a better event.”