San Francisco's AT&T Park hosts the final three games of the World Baseball Classic beginning on Sunday, March 17.

The WBC is Major League Baseball's effort to promote America’s pastime as a sport around the world. Last September, 28 teams entered the qualifying rounds of the World Baseball Classic, and the final round will feature just four: the Dominican Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, and the winner of Friday night's game between the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Japan won both previous rounds of the WBC in 2006 and 2009. The Dominican Republic is well-known as a baseball powerhouse. But the Netherlands has taken the baseball world by surprise. It's their first trip to the final round, after they came from behind to beat the Cuban national team last Monday night. Now the Oranj, as they're known, have become the lovable underdogs of the WBC. The Dutch word for baseball, honkbal, is a trending topic on Twitter whenever the team is playing.
Ian Miller of Oakland Tweets and records podcasts about baseball as part of the team Productive Outs, and he's also a contributor to Baseball Prospectus, where he wrote about his conversion to the cult of honkbal.
"Initially it was just how comical [the word] honkbal was," Miller said. "What they did was just literally translate English-language baseball terms into Dutch. Honkbal literally means baseball. They have things like tweede honkman, which is second baseman, kortestop, shortstop, and werper is pitcher. I can't root for the favorite. I have to root for the underdog, and that has a lot to do with why I threw my lot in with the Dutch. And I needed to throw my lot in with a team, so why not pick these guys who were making me laugh?"