The United States is baseball’s birthplace and the sport’s professional hub. But when it comes to the quadrennial World Baseball Classic (WBC), the US puts their ball-yard passions in their pockets.
It can be hard to figure whether many American fans are reacting to the players’ lack of enthusiasm or whether it is the other way around. Either way, the indifference is a shame.
As the fourth edition of the WBC began this past week in four global locations, it appears apathetic Americans are missing out on a competition rife with intensity and intriguing story lines.
Asian fans and Latin American players have raised the tourney’s blood pressure with their zealous devotion.
Competition from the 2013 tourney gave Chinese Taipei their highest cable television ratings.
In Japan, more people tuned in to watch their baseball team in 2013 than any given Olympic event the year before.
Leave it to the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and the other Latin American nations in the tourney to draw the very best of their MLB players, who treat the WBC like the World Series.
Plus they get to share national bonds.
All you need to know about the WBC is that Manny Machado, an American citizen who was born in Miami, chose to play for the Dominican Republic, the birthplace of his parents.
Why? Machado loved watching players of his cultural heritage compete with joy, then celebrate their first WBC championship in 2013.
"Just watching the chemistry that they had was unbelievable," Machado told ESPN.com. "That's one of the biggest things I'm looking forward to."
Emotions motivate others, too. Born and raised in the US, Freddie Freeman is playing in the WBC to honour his mother, who died when he was 10. Her country of birth was Canada, and that is Freeman’s team.
The WBC is full of quirks. Several countries where average citizens do not know innings from outs, or shortstops from short hops, are oddly represented in the 16-nation WBC.
Come on, San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers fans, are you not curious how teams from baseball-deserts the Netherlands and Israel have made it to the second round?
How some countries made it here, and who is playing for whom, is half the fun.
Generous eligibility rules allow players from Dutch territories in the Caribbean – such as Curacao and Aruba – to play for the mother country. Thus Major League Baseball stars Xander Bogaerts and Kenley Jansen are wearing those orange-accented uniforms.
Then there is Cuba, a country that should be a WBC favourite every time having produced such MLB stars as Yoenis Cespedes, Aroldis Chapman, Yasiel Puig and Jose Abreu. Instead, Cuban politics made those players ineligible.
The line-up is comprised of the country’s domestic-league players, including some gifted ones who may end up in MLB someday, eventually rendering them ineligible, too.
Strange.
Still, nothing is stranger than US players shrugging it off. Yes, stars such as Adam Jones, Giancarlo Stanton, Andrew McCutchen and Buster Posey play. But Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Clayton Kershaw, Kris Bryant, Mookie Betts and a dozen more were not interested.
National League Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer said he wanted in, but a finger injury will not let him. Not one other top-five Cy Young vote-getter in either league (all of them Americans) signed on.
Not surprisingly, given the level of participation and support, the best finish for the US in any WBC was fourth place in 2009.
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