ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — In an act of charity, the New York Yankees sent Neptunus Rotterdam a letter promising some baseball hats "and a used mask that is in good condition."

That was July 16, 1947, when Neptunus was still playing baseball in soccer outfits with shorts.

Half a century later, the Dutch team completed the deal for a player to be named way, way later. Neptunus' gift to the Yankees was infielder Robert Eenhoorn, and after three seasons as a bit player he came back to his homeland to coach and run talent schools. His academy is already sending some of the best at this country's "honkbal" straight into the major league farm system.

The Netherlands has proven that its national baseball team can beat anyone on a given day. Just ask the Dominican Republic, which lost twice to the Dutch at the recent World Baseball Classic. The Europeans have also beaten Cuba at the Olympics — and they have beaten the United States in exhibition play.

"People still make the mistake thinking this is America's Game," Eenhoorn said.

As the major league season starts this weekend, the global impact on the national pastime is bound to increase again. Initially from the Caribbean, then spreading to Japan, then South Korea, and ever further, the players from around the world are making a name for themselves.

"I've been shocked in the teams that I didn't even know that would play baseball — even in Europe, Russia, France, Spain," U.S. coach Davey Johnson said at the World Baseball Classic.

The future might mirror the NBA, which also has turned from purely national rosters to the current teams with a kaleidoscope of players from South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. In the process, the United States lost its stranglehold on the world game.

Beyond Latin America in baseball, players such as Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka of Japan, Chan Ho Park of South Korea and Chien-Ming Wang of Taiwan have already become stars.

The World Classic has now been won twice by Japan, and its toughest competition came from South Korea this year.

It is only the beginning, Eenhoorn said, as he was checking a new batting machine for his baseball academy under the stands of the Neptunus stadium on the outskirts of the world's biggest port.

Soon kids were spilling out of the dressing rooms in state-of-the-art uniforms, tipping their Unicorn caps as if they had been brought up in Cooperstown. The masks were no longer secondhand.

Soon after, Rien Vernooij was hitting balls off a high tee. The eight-year veteran of the Unicorn academy is 20 now and has been invited for extended spring training for the New York Mets, ready to be farmed into any of their rookie league teams.

He, too, had been revved up by a Dutch team beating the Dominican Republic, during the WBC before losing to the United States in the second round.

In Dutch parks, some kids were playing catch in the timid spring sunshine, something you would not usually see in this soccer-dominated nation, Eenhoorn said.

"It has created a tremendous amount of hope," Vernooij said in-between swings. "It only shows that if you practice and play hard you can beat anyone."

Such an attitude, though, is as necessary as proper equipment, facilities and training. And there, too, the world is starting to catch on — sometimes with the help of major league teams.

In southern Brazil's Marilia, the Tampa Bay Rays will invest $6.5 million over five years for equipment, training and personnel in an academy which will have a capacity for 4,000 students.

And when the Brazilian baseball junior championship was decided in Ibiuna, an hour outside Sao Paulo, scouts for the Rays and the Boston Red Sox were there, speed guns ready, looking for talent.

"With the diversity of people here you are going to have good athletes," said Fernando Tamayo, who works for the Red Sox. In a country of almost 200 million driven by a love of soccer, there must be, somewhere, some true baseball talent, too.

Another team is taking its first tentative steps in an unlikely place. The Atlanta Braves have set up camp on the Spanish island of Tenerife off the coast of the western Sahara.

It also holds a danger that Eenhoorn seeks to fight. He does not want the Netherlands to become a sort of baseball colony where a few major league clubs can come poach the national talent at will. Instead, he wants the sport to develop independently in Europe.

So far Dutch baseball only has official relations with Major League Baseball as a whole, not with individual clubs, to reduce the threat of dependency. "If you have to choose for a team, I can see more restrictions than possibilities," he said.

"As long as you can stand on your own legs you should do that," he said.

But in countries where soccer is king, which is most of the world, survival is not easy. Limited sponsorship, government subsidies and fan appeal all reduce the chances of development.

Even though the Netherlands is Europe's best nation for baseball, Eenhoorn gets frustrated because the national federation doesn't even have an official for public relations and marketing. "We are getting more professional on the pitch, but off it, we are still amateurs."

"We don't exploit the possibilities. There is no revenue creation," he complained. His plan is to work for a baseball version of soccer's European Champions League. "You would get more exposure, more revenue and more quality."

Instead this spring, one of Eenhoorn's worries is that part of the European club championships will be scrapped because one field is so poor it is unplayable.

"Compared, Major League Baseball is so professional, so marketing savvy. They can help us financially, but also through knowledge and experience," he said.

___

Associated Press Writer Carolina Escalera contributed to this article from Ibiuna, Brazil.