THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Did they care enough? Did they care too much? Were they too complacent? Did the pressure get to them? Did they even understand the rules?
Those are questions you don’t have to answer when you take home the gold. But fall a step short when expectations to walk away with the gold medal draped around your neck are sky high, and the doubts and questions start to swirl fast and furiously.
Canada’s Olympic men’s ice hockey team knows the feeling, and now so too do USA’s best baseball players after falling ever so short in the latest edition of the World Baseball Classic. After almost failing to advance from the group stages, Team USA fell to Venezuela in the title game by a score of 3-2, leaving the questions and second guesses echoing through the American baseball-sphere.
The WBC was the brainchild of the late former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who dreamed of a best-of-the-best international baseball competition to match the excitement of the Olympics and soccer’s World Cup. The inaugural tilt was held in 2006, and the US team, led by the likes of Ken Griffey Jr, Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones, failed to advance from the qualifying rounds, with a young Daisuke Matsuzaka and Japan topping Cuba in the title game by a 10-6 score.
In 2009, Japan pulled off the repeat, knocking the US out in the semifinals along the way. Another lackluster US appearance followed in the 2013 edition, won by the Dominican Republic, before the boys in the red, white and blue finally managed to take home the crown in 2017, behind Marcus Stroman’s six shutout innings and Ian Kinsler’s go-ahead two-run homer in the third in an 8-0 win over Puerto Rico in the championship game.
Covid then pushed the next Classic back to 2023, when Japan’s Shohei Ohtani showed off his greatness on a world stage, racking up a .435 batting average and a 1.86 ERA over the course of the tournament. In the title game against the USA, Ohtani came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth with Japan holding a slim 3-2 lead. After getting the first two outs, Mike Trout – Ohtani’s Los Angeles Angels teammate who was considered the best player in the game at that time – stepped to the plate in an epic showdown. With 62 million fans in Japan tuned in, Trout ran the count to 3-2 before Ohtani struck him out with a slider to secure Japan’s third WBC title.
Coming into this year’s competition, Team USA was all in for a title tilt with the likes of Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Bobby Witt Jr, and Alex Bregman bringing the lumber, and Joe Ryan, Paul Skenes and Logan Webb composing arguably the top starting rotation in the competition.
“We constructed this roster with one goal in mind: to bring home a WBC Championship for the US fans,” Team USA general manager Michael Hill said when announcing a roster that included 22 players with at least one career All-Star selection. The bookies agreed, making Team USA the odds-on favorite to win the title.
Things got off on the right foot against Brazil in the opener in Pool B play as Judge homered in the top of the first and Team USA never looked back in a 15-5 win. Schwarber then went deep in the next game as the US manhandled Great Britain 9-1.
A tough matchup with Mexico followed, with defending NL Cy Young Award winner Skenes tossing four shutout frames and Judge mashing his second homer of the competition for a 5-3 victory in an electric atmosphere in front of 41,000 fans at Daikin Park in Houston, putting the US firmly in the driver’s seat to qualify for the knockout stages. Or so it seemed.
Next up was an Italy team made up mostly of prospects and minor leaguers, who had also secured wins against Brazil and Great Britain. A win with their star-studded lineup against the Italian upstarts would see the US through to the quarterfinals.
Only that is not how Team USA manager Mark DeRosa saw it. In a pre-game interview on MLB Network, DeRosa made comments which gave the impression he believed that the US had already qualified, regardless of the outcome of the Italy game. He then proceeded to rest a couple of his regulars, including Harper. Additionally, a few of the US players spoke before the game of staying up late the night before celebrating the emotional win against Mexico with a few beverages and lively baseball banter… surely there was nothing to worry about against the upstart band of cappuccino drinking Italians.
But in the top of the second, catcher Kyle Teel and shortstop Sam Antonacci – both Chicago White Sox minor leaguers – went deep off US starter Nolan McLean, before right fielder Jac Caglianone lined a two-run shot over the fence in the fourth. Italy then tacked on three more runs in the sixth inning and suddenly the US was staring up at an 8-0 deficit on the scoreboard.
A frenzied comeback including two home runs from Pete Crow-Armstrong and another from Gunnar Henderson over the final three innings wasn’t enough, and the Italians had a highly unexpected 8-6 upset victory, which – contrary to DeRosa’s pre-game comments – actually left the US needing Italy to pull off yet another upset against Mexico the following night to avoid the unthinkable scenario of the mighty US team not advancing in the tournament.
Luckily for the Americans, Kansas City first baseman and Italy team captain Vinnie Pasquantino became the first player in WBC history to slug three homers in the same game, and Italy kept their dream run alive with a 9-1 victory over the Mexicans, saving the US’s bacon in the process. A big sigh of relief and a monumental ‘Grazie’ from Team USA.
The quarterfinals brought a rematch – of sorts – of the Olympic men’s and women’s ice hockey finals, with Team Canada looking to even the score a bit with their southern neighbors. The US built a 5-0 lead in the top of the sixth behind 4 2/3 scoreless frames from starting pitcher Logan Webb. But in the bottom of the inning, an RBI single from Tyler Black and a 2-run blast from catcher Bo Naylor cut the lead to 5-3. In the seventh, Canada ramped up the pressure even further by putting two on with nobody out, before reliever David Bednar retired the next three batters to send the US on their way into the semifinals.
That set up a scintillating matchup against a star-studded Dominican Republic team sporting superstars including Juan Soto, Fernando Tatís Jr, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and Manny Machado in a battle of two of the most potent offenses ever to take the field in the same game in baseball history. But despite all of the firepower on offer, this one turned into a pitchers’ duel with Skenes battling Luis Severino out-for-out.
Skenes threw 4 2/3 innings, giving up just a solo home run to Junior Caminero in the second inning, before five relievers trotted out of the bullpen to throw scoreless frames, and Gunnar Henderson and Roman Anthony (who as a Minor Leaguer had bought a ticket in the stands at last WBC finals in the same Miami stadium in 2023) provided just enough offense with solo homers, and the US held on for a heart-stopping 2-1 victory.
After an 8-6 win over Puerto Rico in the quarterfinals, Team Italy’s magic run came to an end in the semifinals at the hands of Venezuela by a score of 4-2, sending the Venezuelans to the final to face the US for the title.
More than 36,000 rabid fans packed loanDepot Park in Miami to see the Venezuelans, considered significant underdogs, face the mighty American lineup. Team USA got into the spirit of things and tried to channel some championship vibes by turning up to the stadium in game-worn jerseys from the men’s Olympic ice hockey gold medal winning game.
In a tense affair in which every pitch seemed monumental, starters Eduardo Rodríguez and Nolan McLean battled into the fifth, with Venezuela pushing across runs on a sacrifice fly in the top of the third and a huge solo home run in the fifth inning from Wyler Abreu.
The US was running out of road when Harper played Mr. Clutch with a majestic two-run, two-out homer to center field to tie the game. “What a moment,” Harper said. “I love the atmosphere and I love the chance. Grateful for it. We tie it up right there, and I thought we had a great chance to win that game.”
But in the top of the ninth, Luis Arraez led off with a walk. Pinch runner Javier Sanoja swiped second base before Eugenio Suárez found the outfield grass in deep left center to send Sanoja streaking home and the Venezuelan contingent in the raucous crowd into fits of ecstasy. The US could muster no response in the bottom half of the inning against Daniel Palencia’s 100-mph heater, going down in order.
After failing to live up to expectations in a competition of this magnitude and with this much coverage, the vultures will swoop in quickly to pick the carcass clean in the aftermath.
The US is complacent and overconfident, they shouted. When things are going well, a measure of focused professionalism can come off as confident. When losing to a big underdog, such as Italy, or seeming not to understand the rules of the competition, or scoring just six runs in three knockout games when it counted, it can look like complacency.
The truth is that it probably does mean that little bit more for players from Latin America or Japan to represent their countries on a worldwide stage, than for US players competing in their national pastime in front of their home fans. “It’s special to wear that jersey,” Venezuelan captain Salvador Perez said before the tournament. “I love the game. I still play hard. I give everything I have for the Royals every day. And I think I proved that for a lot of years. But when you put Venezuela on your chest, it’s different.”
That doesn’t mean the US players want to win any less than the international players do – of course they want to defend the home turf. But it is definitely a bit harder sell.
The US take themselves too seriously, they yelled. While it is clearly true that, particularly, the Latin American teams play with a verve and gusto and enthusiasm that infects the crowds and their entire countries, that level of outward expressions of passion just doesn’t really suit the US players’ demeanor or approach to the game.
“What those guys do so well on the other side of the ball is they make every pitch interesting,” US outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong said. “And that’s so cool.” But he went on to point out that if US players tried to act like the Latin American players do, it would feel silly to them. And again, it’s not that the US players don’t know how to celebrate or show their emotions, “I think we just pick our spots,” Crow-Armstrong concluded.
So are the Americans really bought into the World Baseball Classic? From what I’ve seen, the players genuinely love playing for each other and representing their country. These are competitive guys who feed off of the energy and want to prove they are the best in the world.
“It was bigger and better than the World Series," Team USA captain Aaron Judge said after defeating the Dominican Republic in the semifinals. “The passion that these fans have, representing their country, representing some of their favorite players, there’s nothing like it. It gives me chills right now thinking about how special that was."
Whether he really believes the WBC is “better” than the World Series isn’t really the point, but I do think that whenever the next iteration of the World Baseball Classic rolls around, we’ll see the top American players lining up to get out there and put it all on the line for team and country.
