Aruban Heritage on a Kachi Glove

Aruba has roughly 100,000 people. It has produced one of the most accomplished shortstops of his generation, and the flag belongs on the glove of every player who comes from there.

The country in baseball

Aruba is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and shares a baseball culture with Curaçao, though it operates its own development pipeline. The Aruban game runs through youth and amateur leagues that have steadily fed the Dutch national team — which reached the semifinals of the 2013 World Baseball Classic and has been a fixture in the main tournament since 2009. Aruba's youth programs have produced multiple Little League World Series Caribbean Region appearances, and the country's small but high-caliber set of MLB players reflects the depth of its development infrastructure relative to its population. The island's two main amateur leagues run year-round in Oranjestad and the surrounding municipalities.

A moment that defined the country in MLB

October 28, 2018, Dodger Stadium. Xander Bogaerts, the 26-year-old shortstop from Oranjestad, started at short and went 1-for-4 as the Boston Red Sox closed out the Dodgers in five games to win the 2018 World Series — Bogaerts's first championship and the moment Aruba moved from "produces good shortstops" to "produces a shortstop holding a World Series trophy at Dodger Stadium." Bogaerts had also won a title with the 2013 Red Sox as a 21-year-old rookie. He has since added multiple Silver Sluggers and an All-Star selection and signed one of the largest contracts ever given to a shortstop.

Notable players

• Xander Bogaerts — multi-time MLB All-Star and Silver Slugger shortstop, two-time World Series champion with the Boston Red Sox (2013, 2018), one of the most accomplished Caribbean-born shortstops of his era.
• Sidney Ponson — long-tenured MLB right-handed starter, including time with the Orioles, Giants, and Yankees; 17-game winner in 2003.
• Calvin Maduro — MLB right-handed pitcher with the Orioles and Phillies, multi-season MLB tenure.
• Eugene Kingsale — MLB outfielder who appeared with the Orioles, Mariners, Padres, and Tigers across multiple seasons.

The Kachi flag option

The Aruban flag — blue with the yellow stripes and the red four-pointed star — is embroidered on the wrist strap or pinky of your custom glove at no extra cost. Aruba is a small enough baseball country that no major glove brand bothers to offer it as a configurator option; on a roster of eleven heritage flags, Aruba is on the list because the country's MLB output relative to its 100,000-person population deserves the same treatment as any larger pipeline. Matched colors, your placement, included on every custom build.