Players on multiple national teams

From BR Bullpen

There are over 50 people who have represented more than one country on the international stage. There are several reasons why a player would appear for multiple countries:

1) Changing national borders/nations dissolving/nations forming - ex. Yevgeny Puchkov played for the USSR national team before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Russian national team afterwards

2) Players moving from one country to another - ex. Paul Gonzalez played for the USA (where he grew up) then moved to Australia, married a local woman, became a citizen and played for the Australian national team

3) Loose national citizenship rules. It is easy to gain Italian citizenship (or some other countries like Spain) so many players from abroad have gained citizenship to play for the Italian national team - ex. Carlos Guzmán

4) Overlapping borders. Numerous players have appeared for both the Netherlands Antilles national team and the Netherlands national team, as the Antilles are a self-governing part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands - ex. Andrelton Simmons

5) Loose tournament rules. The World Baseball Classic and its qualifiers have allowed people to play for countries their ancestors came from or where they have played pro ball. Ex. Matt Vance, an American, played for the German national team in the 2012 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers as he was active in the German Bundesliga, then switched to the Philippines for the 2016 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers as he was of Filipino descent

In rare cases, players have gone from one country to another and back again. Max De Biase played for the Argentinian national team in 1995, the Italian national team from 2005-2007 and Argentina again in 2010. Mike Bolsenbroek played for the Netherlands in 2004, Germany in 2012 and the Netherlands in 2014-2015.

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