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The World Baseball Classic is over, and now we wait for more
Thursday’s Say Hey, Baseball focuses on the next round of the WBC we’ll see, a hair dye shortage, and MLB’s last perfect game.
Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images
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The United States won their first World Baseball Classic championship on Wednesday, defeating Puerto Rico 8-0 in the final game. The tournament as a whole was exciting, with signature moments, some wonderful defense, monster bat flips, and teams full of players clearly enjoying themselves in ways we don’t always get to see during MLB’s season. Sadly, the 2017 edition of the WBC is over now, and now we wait four years for the next tournament to take place.
Well, three years, really, since before we get to the tournament proper we get to witness the qualifying tournament. Held in 2016, the qualifying tournament for the World Baseball Classic is how we ended up with Colombia, Australia, Mexico, and the success story of Israel in this year’s WBC. There will be one of these in 2020, featuring the teams that finished last in their first-round pools in this tournament — Chinese Tapei, China, Canada, and Mexico again. In addition, there will be 12 other countries, likely made up mostly of teams who were in the qualifier last time around, such as Spain, Brazil, New Zealand, Panama, Pakistan, Great Britain, South Africa, and more.
While a championship isn’t on the line yet, that part of the tournament is a fascinating watch. It’s baseball when baseball doesn’t usually count, just like the main tournament of the WBC is. It features countries you absolutely do not think of as baseball countries (and also Mexico and Canada, who need to get their respective acts together). It’s where the future of the WBC comes in: As baseball becomes more and more global, with more time invested in making it a serious sport in these countries fighting to qualify, we should see more and more legitimate competition spring up. Ask the Netherlands how quickly it can happen.
Considering it took until this, the fourth iteration of the WBC, for the USA to win the whole thing, it seems like there is already a lot of competition out there, too. And that’s good for the worldwide health of baseball.
- Team USA scored eight runs, but thanks to a strong start from Marcus Stroman, all they would need came on this swing from Ian Kinsler.
- Stroman easily could have been the weak link of this Team USA rotation, but instead, he ended up being the MVP with six innings of one-hit ball against Puerto Rico in the final.
- Did you miss Grant Brisbee’s liveblogging of the WBC final? It’s still out there for you to read.
- This thrilling tournament ensures a bright future for the WBC.
- Puerto Rico’s success in the tournament ended up causing a hair dye shortage.
- Did this fan in a Nolan Ryan jersey realize they were sitting next to Nolan Ryan?
- The Cubs are getting a World Series movie, so we cast the whole thing. With Muppets.
- If Tim Tebow strikes out three times against the Greenville Drive this summer, everyone there wins a free Whopper.
- This story about the Reds’ Hernan Iribarren is probably easier to read than explain in this bulleted format.
- A feature on Terry Francona? Twist my arm, etc.
- Here’s Russell A. Carleton on the secret power of the foul ball.
- It’s been half a decade since MLB’s last perfect game, and Kate Preusser has a story on the phenomenon.
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