Over the first four editions of the World Baseball Classic the common complaint has been that many of the game’s brightest stars tend to skip out on the tournament. Past editions have had their share of stars, but they have also had quite a few absent stars at least at MLB level. Generally, top tier talent in the NPB, KBO or CPBL is present at the WBC with few exceptions and there is a perception, rightly or wrongly, that there is more enthusiasm for the tournament in Asia and in Latin America than in the US and Canada. That said, things are starting to change. The 2023 edition of the World Baseball Classic promises to be the best so far in terms of the quality of players involved and the number of storylines already starting to develop.
There is lots to get excited about come this March. Americans will wonder if they will finally get a Dream Team on the field like what we saw in basketball for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The Dominicans are already throwing down their gauntlet with what already looks like it’s going to be the most star-studded team in WBC history. Will Japan and Korea tap into the Japanese and Korean American players that they overlooked in the past to bolster their already strong rosters? Can the Dutch make it to the championship rounds again? Can Israel survive the group of death and make another memorable run like 2017? Who is the new dark horse? Is it Mexico, or a Piazza led Italy? What about a new generation of Canadian talent? Can one of the debutants shock the world and go on a run like the Dutch or Israelis have against the odds? There are a lot of questions going into this tournament that we are looking forward to having answered. But the most important of all is on the tournament itself; has it finally come of age?
I would say yes. It is now the premier international baseball tournament, ahead of the Olympic Games and ahead of tournaments such as Premier 12. It is no longer a side show in the middle of spring training that many players brush off as a distraction from their MLB careers. There is prestige these days in this tournament and lots of very dangerous teams that make this tournament far from a coronation for the powerhouses. Years of upsets have shown us this. Perhaps it being gone during the pandemic taught us a new appreciation for the WBC and the excitement that there always is around it. A world deadened by isolation and boredom probably taught us to love events like these that bring so many different cultures together. Another push from the pandemic may have been the fact that fans were exposed like never before to the way baseball is played and celebrated in Asia and Latin America like never before. As MLB was frozen by the virus, fans were forced to make do with KBO and/or CPBL games and in so doing found a completely new, yet exciting fan culture that stuck with them. This was and remains true of me.
As the 2023 WBC approaches we are left with two very comforting facts. One is that the game remains alive and well in the countries where it was always strong. The second is that the game is growing like never before and enjoys a reach that Albert Spalding could have only dreamt of as he was cobbling together his world tour of 1889. Three nations will debut at the 2023 WBC and of the returning nations, some have gone from dismissed as also-rans to legitimate powers in their own right. We have a group of death where at least one of the superpowers will go out in round one. We have Mike Trout, Vlad Jr., Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman all lined up and ready to go. More stars will likely commit in the next month or two as the winter takes hold. Life is good. The world is still round and so is the ball with which we play. I look forward to an amazing tournament of incredible memories this coming March that will create new dreams in hearts all over this amazing planet of ours.
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