Curaçao has produced several Major League Baseball players like Andruw Jones and Kenley Jansen. Jefferdson Jimenez is a senior at Northwest Missouri State University who is from Curaçao and still hopes to play professional baseball. As a youth, he modeled his style after Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez. At age 18, he had tryouts with the Pirates and Braves but was not signed. He later had tryouts with the Mets, Phillies, and Royals but his closest chance with the Mets fell through when he had to return to school. After moving to the US and playing junior college and club baseball, he continues playing and hopes to get

1. Kramer Sansone
Sports Reporting
Curaçao a small island apart of the ABC islands and north of Venezuela. The Netherlands
is the motherland to Curaçao. This island is different from the rest. With its rich history of
baseball players to come out of the island such as Andruw Jones, Andrelton Simmons, Jurickson
Profar, Kenley Jansen, Jonathan Schoop and Jair Jurrjens. Dreams do come true for those Major
League Baseball players and one person from Caraçao still wants his MLB dream to come true.
Jefferdson Jimenez is a senior at Northwest Missouri State University studying cooperate
and wellness recreation athletic trainer. Jimenez has had an eventful life to lead up to the fall
semester of his senior year.
Jimenez at a young age idolized Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez. He liked them
because of their style and play ability. Nothing ever changed with batting stance or throwing
style between the two players and Jimenez took that style from them and made it his when he
plays.
At age 18, Jimenez had tryouts in Curaçao with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Atlanta
Braves. Scouts were very high on talent Jimenez presented at the tryouts but never reached back
onto him.
“When scouts come to Curaçao they are only looking for the next superstar like Mike
Trout. They do not look for an average player,” Jimenez said.
Three weeks later when Jimenez went to the Dominican Republic and had three more
tryouts, they were with the New York Mets Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals. The
tryout with the Mets was different for Jimenez.

2. “They told me they wanted me to stay a few more days so they can look at me more in
depth,” Jimenez said. “But I had to go back home because I had school the next day.”
Probably the closest chance for Jimenez to get a contract from a professional baseball
team and it slipped out of his hands. There is a signing period for the players in Dominican
Republic and Curaçao and when they are above the age of 18 then most scout’s lose interest in
the players because they feel like there talent will not peak soon or if they already peaked in their
sport.
Jimenez moved to America in 2013 at the age of 19 to hopefully make his dream come
true to play professional baseball. America is a place with more opportunities than Caraçao.
Jimenez went to a junior college in Trenton, Missouri, to further his education and play baseball.
In Caraçao sports and school are separate. There are no such things for playing for your schools
team.
“If you want to do baseball find a team close to your house to play,” Jimenez said.
After the two years Jimenez spent in Trenton, he transferred to Northwest Missouri State
University to further his studying and playing baseball. The mind set Jimenez was in he thought
he was too old to continue playing baseball so he did not try out for the school team, but instead
he found a new team with the club baseball team at Northwest. The head coach for the club team
was Cal Shillings accepted Jimenez onto the team.
“When coach Loe sent his name and contact information to me I could not resist a guy
with accolades Jeff has,” Shillings said. “Jeff has been a valuable piece and a great helper with
the pitching staff on our team.”

3. “I am fortunate to play the game I love still and being able to go to class,” Jimenez said.
“My first gifts that I remember as a kid was a baseball, bat and glove from my father and I plan
to continue to use those equipment for the rest of my time.”
Jefferdson Jimenez still plays on the Northwest Club Baseball team plans to go to
graduate in the fall of 2017. He is going graduate school in Texas and plans attend open tryouts
for MLB teams around the league to hopefully gets signed by a team and continue his baseball
career.