From yahoo answers: “Along with “Dutch treat,” which originally implied “cheap,” other insults once popular included “Dutch courage” (liquor), “Dutch defense” (a retreat), “Dutch headache” (a hangover), “Do a Dutch” (commit suicide), “Dutch concert” (a drunken uproar), and “Dutch nightingale” (a frog, which seems an especially low blow).”
Tonight the meaning of the phrase was an amazing baseball game in which The Netherlands beat The Dominicans in the 11th inning in the WBC. This was the second time they beat them in this tournament, but this time it was advance or be eliminated and this group of minor leaguers came from behind to stun the hotshot all-stars. I find this to be compelling sports.
I am a Red Sox fan first and foremost and care about them winning the “World Series” way more than USA winning the “World Baseball Classic”, but I still feel like The WBC is a more interesting and important global event. The Olympics are incredible displays of athletic prowess and unite everybody in ways that no other international competition can, but while syncronized swimming may be beautiful, it does not exactly strike me as thrilling competition. Despite, or perhaps because of, my lack of a regional soccer team, I think the World Cup is the best sporting event ever, even if I don’t focus my life around it the way I do “American Football” or Baseball. It just seems to be the most simple and pure game — for how many millions of years have humans been playing kick the ball in the net? — and I find it beautiful and intensely gripping. While it may not occur here, I know that some cultures completely shut down for Cup games and it becomes either a source of intense national pride or shame. I can imagine what that feels like for Boston or New England Championships, but not for a USA championship. I wish we could agree on something as a collective fan base, so I could finally hug a Yankees fan on a victory that means more than either one of our tiny 1% of the country’s population that happens to care about the same thing we do.