World Baseball Classic comes of age

Venezuela celebrates first WBC title and Canada makes history

What a positive breakthrough it has been for major-league baseball. Following Team Venezuela’s emotional 3-2 victory over Team USA on Tuesday in the WBC final, the tournament has finally earned its spot on any calendar of major sporting events. Sifting through this year’s success in what was the sixth staging of the event since 2006, in terms of storylines, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Important questions and doubts on the WBC’s viability have remained since the tournament debuted and had refused to be answered in any substantive way. Questions like should the WBC be played during the All-Star break in July? Should it be used to court the IOC with an end goal of becoming a permanent Summer Olympic sport? How do you get the best players to buy in during March when the popu;ar belief is that players are just gearing up for the 162-game grind of a regular season?

All those questions may have been answered this year, in Tokyo, San Juan, Houston and Miami, over the course of 15 days, 47 games, competed in by 20 national teams defined by so much obvious national pride from so many unlikely fanbases.

As for the question of WBC timing on the calendar, I remember the old days when players in February needed six weeks to get back in shape after a winter of working at real jobs or just relaxing on the couch. In Expos camp, 1971, catcher John Bateman chose to wear a skindiving wetsuit for his post-workout running, to sweat off excess pounds so that he could meet his assigned weight. That doesn’t happen anymore.

It should also be noted for those that believe being invited to the the Olympics is the Holy Grail for MLB, that in ’28 at Los Angeles, as the entire regular season is paused, there will be only six nations actually invited to compete and that Canada is not one of them. Neither is Mexico or Cuba. The three representatives of the Americas are USA, Venezuela and the Dominican. Consider there will be more nations in L.A. attempting to compete for the Flag Football podium.

In terms of 2026 WBC highlights, where to begin. There was Ernie Whitt and Canada finally making it out of Pool play. There was Team Italy capturing the imagination of the baseball world, with GM Ned Colletti organizing a group of international mercenaries into an Espresso swilling, Armani wearing group of friends and patriots. The Italians beat Team USA in Pool Play, then saved Mark DeRosa’s bacon by beating team Mexico the next night to keep America alive. Italy advanced to the semi-final, the first time ever by a European team, before losing the semis to Venezuela.

TEAM USA: Start here with the team that, for months leading up to the tourney, benefitted from its own hype machine. Manager DeRosa’s full-time job is as co-host of one of MLB Network’s morning shows, thus he was given a platform and able to trumpet each and every signing of an all-star pitcher or position player. Which he did. This always seemed like the WBC team to beat, on paper.

So, what happened to the most talented baseball roster ever? It says here that the baseball gods became annoyed and took it out on USA in the final. Here we go.

1-The USA and DeRosa had crowed about the commitments of MLB’s two best starters, Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes early on in the process. But, as the tournament neared, Skubal and the Tigers decided that he would be available for one and only one start. So, in all their wisdom, they chose the second game of Pool play against Great Britain for his one assignment. That made no sense. It would be like nuking Granada when they invaded that tiny Caribbean Island back in the ‘80s.

Team USA could have used that one Skubal start for one of the playoff games and had Skenes and Logan Webb to join him. But even worse is the underlying reason that with free agency pending and a third of a billion dollars on the horizon and given the faint possibility of injury in his extra WBC start of maximum 80 pitches, he chose money over country. The baseball gods do pay attention.

2-Twice in pool play, the best catcher in baseball, Cal Raleigh, displayed a pseudo-tough guy persona by refusing to shake hands with an opponent’s first or second hitter. One assumes it was because the WBC is supposed to be a heated rivalry. What made it worse is that Randy Arozarena (Mexico) and Josh Naylor (Canada) are both Mariners teammates. Come on! Even though Naylor texted Raleigh before the game to warn him, it happened, anyway. The gods were watching and shaking their heads.

3-After beating Mexico to go 3-0 in Pool play, DeRosa went on TV the next morning prior to the pool-play finale vs. Italy and, oozing overconfidence, told his day-job workmates in studio that because “we have already punched our ticket to the quarterfinals” that they had stayed in the clubhouse deep into the night and he was going to give starts to some players that hadn’t been in games.

Not only that but his first two relievers in a game they lost and as it turns out that he needed to win were Brad Keller and Ryan Yarbrough. At some point, after they were already down 8-0, someone must have let DeRosa know about the pesky tiebreaker possibility of being eliminated. He had been warming up Clayton Kershaw, but quickly sat him down for Mason Miller, as they lost 8-6.

With Mexico still alive, needing a win over Italy or to hold them to four runs or less, the Espresso boys exploded behind Vinnie Pasquantino’s three-homers to backdoor USA into the Elite-8. Pasquantino, the Royals first baseman with Italian heritage, in his post-game interview ad-libbed with a simple, “You’re welcome, America.” At this point the baseball gods were giggling.

4-Hey manager DeRosa, WAR is important, but war is not. Baseball in order to succeed, is a game of balance, with a healthy dose of relaxed focus. Grip the bat too tightly, grit your teeth too much, let your mind wander at the plate, in the field or on the mound and it’s a recipe for failure. So, it’s a mystery why, prior to the quarterfinal game vs. Canada, DeRosa invited into his pre-game clubhouse to give a pep talk, one of the intense Navy Seals involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Surprising, then, that before the Venezuela title game, the skipper didn’t invite the Seal who catapulted bin Laden’s body into the Indian Ocean to maybe talk about launch angle. By this time the baseball gods were certainly scratching their heads.

5-It continues. Prior to Tuesday’s championship game, Team USA players strolled down the tunnel off the bus to the clubhouse wearing game-used jerseys from the USA hockey team that had captured gold at the Olympics over Team Canada. Two problems there. First, it was a copycat move of Team Canada’s idea from four days earlier when they wore Canada’s hockey jerseys for batting practice. Second, Aaron Judge, the USA captain, wore Austin Matthews USA captain’s jersey down the hall, then in the final when he needed to come up big, went 0-for-4 with 3 Ks. Coincidence?

Oh well, at least one streak will continue on the heels of the USA loss. There’s an unofficial 5-1/2 year tradition that has seen no Judge invited to Trump’s White House since Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October, 2020.

Team Venezuela: Very rarely is it worth sticking around on TV to take in trophy presentations. But following Venezuela’s win, the post-game 30 minutes was as emotional and compelling as the game itself. To see the tears, hugs and unbridled joy of the players and coaches like Miggy Cabrera, Johan Santana and Victor Martinez. To hear and see the crowd dance and yell and cry some more as their team accepted gold medals from commissioner Rob Manfred was worth hanging around for.

Three things stood out in the post-game portion of the broadcast. First was Manfred’s seeming priority in the USA dugout talking to losing manager DeRosa right after the final out. Second was the Commissioner pulling Bryce Harper in for a silver-medal embrace, when it was less than a year before that the Phillies star had thrown Manfred out of the home clubhouse pre-emptively, before he could talk about negotiations and MLB’s fixation of a salary cap. Last noticeable moment was ace reliever Mason Miller quickly accepting, then just as quickly removing, his silver medal, with the speculation being that it was because he had not been allowed to pitch in a tie game in the ninth by the Padres. Gracious in defeat. Not.

It wasn’t all about USA warts. There was one move that would have gained 100-percent approval from the horsehide gods of WAR if they were still tuned in. It was when Harper took the time to cross the field after getting his silver and hugged each of the victorious, still celebrating Venezuelans who were waiting for their gold.

What a night. What a tournament. The WBC has come of age. Now let’s play ball.