It’s the second time Curaçao has won the Little League World Series, a global tournament for baseball teams of 10- to 12-year-olds. The tiny Caribbean nation of 150,000 people — once a Dutch colony and still affiliated with the Kingdom of the Netherlands — is an unexpected baseball powerhouse. The sport was introduced by Dominican and Venezuelan immigrants in the 1930s, and today Curaçao is the largest per-capita exporter of Major League Baseball players of any country in the world. Earlier this summer, 1990s star Andruw Jones, one of the greatest center-fielders ever to play the game, became the first Curaçao-born player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Pabien to Curaçao!
Hard Numbers
Big win in the Little League World Series
Will Fitzpatrick
By Alex KlimentAugust 31, 2026
Alex Kliment
Alex wears a few different caps and tips them all regularly. He writes for the GZERO Daily, works as a field correspondent for GZERO's nationally syndicated TV show GZERO WORLD WITH IAN BREMMER, and writes/directs/voices GZERO's award-winning puppet satire show PUPPET REGIME. Prior to joining GZERO, Alex worked as an analyst covering Russia and broader Emerging Markets for Eurasia Group. He has also written for the Financial Times from Washington, DC, and Sao Paulo Brazil. In his spare time, he makes short films and composes scores for long ones. He studied history and Slavic literature at Columbia and has a Master's from Johns Hopkins SAIS. He's a native New Yorker, a long-suffering Mets fan, and owns too many bicycles.
