This is a great time of the year for sports.  College basketball's "March Madness" is just getting started.  The NBA (professional basketball) is also in its home stretch, with teams fighting hard for play-off positioning.  Major League Baseball is in spring training -- with all the hope and hoopla of a new season just around the corner -- while the international "World Baseball Classic" is simultaneously coming to a climax.  And this is all to say nothing of the European soccer (football) leagues and the North American ice hockey league -- which, I must confess, do not hold my personal interest as much, but which are certainly worthy sports, coming to their own seasonal peaks, in their own right!

Aside from the fascination with the sports themselves, though, I had an interesting moment of cultural realization the other day, as I was following the internet coverage of the World Baseball Classic and watching Elliot complete his collection of stickers from the Dutch Eredivisie (the national premier league of soccer).

I was noticing the colors worn by the national teams in the World Baseball Classic (in which the Netherlands and the United States have both had respectable showings this year) -- and in other international sports competitions, too, for that matter.  The Americans always wear red, white, and blue.  And the Dutch always wear orange.  But then I was thinking about the national sports leagues, and I realized that there is an intriguing difference between the American sports leagues (i.e. Major League Baseball) and the Dutch sports leagues (i.e. the Voetbal Eredivisie).  In American Major League Baseball, a disproportionate number of teams (14 out of 30) have adopted red, white, and/or blue as their team colors.  But in the Dutch Soccer Eredivisie, however, only one team (out of 18) has adopted the national colors (orange) for its team colors.  Take a look at the official websites for Major League Baseball and the Eredivisie, if you don't believe me...

Isn't that odd?!?!  Does this say something about the sense of nationalism in these two cultures?  Or does it say something about the national interest in sports?  Or does it simply speak to the aesthetic charm of red-white-and-blue over orange, purely as colors?  Perhaps no one else would find this interesting or compelling in anyway -- but I thought it was fascinating...