MIAMI, FL, March 16 — When I decided to plan a trip to Miami centered around the knockout stage of the World Baseball Classic a few weeks ago, I did so with the expectation that the tournament would see a steady rise in popularity over the next couple of decades. In a world where almost everything is on the verge of falling apart, the WBC presents a refreshing opportunity to invest in something that’s fun and has its best days clearly in the future.
Well, I was wrong. The future is now!
The World Baseball Classic isn’t just a story of slow and steady growth for tomorrow — it’s a love letter sent down from the baseball gods addressed to everybody on planet Earth, and in most places, it already arrived yesterday. (Some folks just haven’t checked their mailbox yet.)
Simply put, there is nothing like the World Baseball Classic. I keep looking for some combination of words I can string together here to try and communicate what I’ve seen and experienced the last four days, and nothing is going to do it justice.
In less than 100 hours, I’ve gone from never being more impressed by a singular fanbase than I am for Team Japan, to never being more impressed by a singular fanbase than I am for the Dominican Republic, to never being more impressed by a singular fanbase than I am for Venezuela. And as silly as this may sound after that last sentence, I’m not somebody who is easily impressed.
Team Japan brought an armada of fans from the other side of the planet. They wore creative costumes and face paint, brought flags, expectations, and a deep knowledge of the game, donned a million Shohei Ohtani jerseys, and flooded Miami with an obsession for baseball I haven’t seen in a city since Boston in 2004. These folks are everywhere!
Ohtani is like a God to them. When he comes to the plate, the entire background state of the stadium changes. Side conversations evaporate, unrelated chanting stops, focus maximizes, and anticipation builds. Everybody in the park knows they might be about to witness something extraordinary on any given pitch, and in the bottom of the first inning Saturday, we did.
In what felt like a direct counterpunch to Ronald Acuna’s solo home run in the top of the first inning, the greatest player in the world instantly answered and set the stage for Japan to eventually jump out to a 5-2 lead.
But oddly enough, it was an Ohtani strikeout with two men on and a chance to extend that three run lead later in the game that ultimately served as the turning point. If Ohtani can be beaten, well then so can team Japan, and that’s exactly what happened later that night, powered largely by Wilyer Abreu’s three run homer:
Then on Sunday night, there was the United States against the Dominican Republic, and a full 90 minutes before first pitch, the DR fans were doing this:
They only got louder as the evening progressed, and as a group, they turned a night at the ballpark into a five-hour party with enough electricity to light up the Miami skyline for a week. And of course, all this was happening while perhaps the greatest collection of talent ever assembled on a baseball diamond in a game that mattered faced off in a nerve-wracking 2-1 battle. It just doesn’t get any better than this! (Except it does, because Roman Anthony ended up hitting what turned out to be the game winning home run.)
But despite all of this, the fanbase that’s taught me the most about how to act as a human being is the Venezuelans. From now on, when I think of the word joy, I’m going to think of them.
Their manager Omar Lopez said something to the effect of “we just want to bring some happiness to our country” in this tournament. And, well, they’ve already done that and more, despite still being one win away from the championship.
Until you experience a game with the Venezuelans, you will never believe an atmosphere could be both so tense and so friendly at the same time. It was as if I was back in a ballpark with all the passion of Red Sox vs. Yankees of the early 2000s, but none of the hostility. And of course, this is only more amazing when you consider I experienced this while wearing a U.S hat, the very country that bombed their homeland a mere two months ago.
Whenever anything good happened for their team, they wanted to include me in their celebrations, which included dancing, specialized chants, and a joy you barely see anywhere in the world right now. Here I am, as white as Christmas snow equipped with zero dancing ability, and these folks are grabbing my hand and teaching me how they do it.
Perhaps I’ll have better luck at retaining their chants. My favorite of which is when they yell “Ponche! Ponche!” while swinging their right arm anytime their pitcher gets two strikes on a hitter. It actually comes from the English word strikeout or punch out, but it’s clearly pronounced with a delightful Spanish flair. Perhaps we should try to bring this thing to Fenway whenever Venezuelan native Ranger Suarez is on the mound this summer. It’s so much fun!
You know what else was fun? Watching this Venezuelan team celebrate after punching their ticket to the WBC final.
I have no idea how this tournament manages to keep topping itself every single day, but with the U.S. and Venezuela set to match up for all the marbles tonight, it just might do it again. But regardless of who gets crowned champion, this has already been an enormous win for the sport of baseball on a scale of global proportions, and that’s something we can all celebrate.
