The World Cup finished in spectacular fashion on Sunday, but there is another major international competition on the horizon. The World Baseball Classic will take place between March 8th and March 21 in the new year.
This will be the fifth World Baseball Classic with three different countries winning the first four. Japan won in both 2006 and 2009, the Dominican Republic took the crown in 2013, and the United States came out on top in 2017.
Adam Jones made one of the most iconic plays for Team USA during that 2017 run, robbing fellow Baltimore Oriole Manny Machado of a home run in the quarterfinals.
Adam Jones and Team USA manager Mark DeRosa joined WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the Audacy Original Podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” to get Americans hyped up for the World Baseball Classic.
“I think it’s similar to the World Cup to where since America was competitive in it people are paying more attention to it,” Jones said (19:28 in player above). “The other countries are paying more attention to it because of pride, but obviously, in America, we got so many other things that we can divert our attention to. But I think with us winning it in 2017, America fans are like ‘OK, alright, it’s coming back. Can’t wait for it to come back.’ They’re excited.”
The WBC is scheduled nicely in the American sports calendar. The NFL is in the offseason, MLB is ramping up spring training, and both the NHL and NBA are in the penultimate month of the season. It overlaps with March Madness, but there are enough TVs to go around.
The US has put together another strong roster for the upcoming WBC. Clayton Kershaw was the latest All-Star to commit to play, joining guys like Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Trea Turner, and Paul Goldschmidt. Team USA is putting together an unbelievable roster as the list of stars goes on and on.
Of course, that list of players will be trimmed down due to injuries and other things that are bound to happen – Bryce Harper has already had to bow out due to surgery. Nevertheless, the most important thing is those star players coming together as a team.
“The biggest thing I think is a need, is a necessity, is what we did in 2017 that we didn’t do in 2013 was we only had three days in 2013 together… We were all unfamiliar with everybody. Then in 2017, we were able to have 10 days with each other,” Jones said, explaining that he got to learn some of the tendencies and personalities of his teammates.
“I felt really comfortable with these guys because we had spent a lot of time together. So hopefully, they do the same thing where they can go to a camp and those guys can have hopefully two weeks together to just get acclimated to each other’s personalities because it’s easy to say on paper ‘This is how a team should be,’ but when you put personalities together and superstars and everybody’s ego, sometimes egos overthrow each other. But when you allow these guys to play together with each other it made us go so much smoother.”
That 2017 roster may not have been the most talented or better on paper than previous Team USAs, but they played as a team and that helped them take the crown.
DeRosa was a part of one of those previous teams in 2009 and he echoed Jones’ sentiments.
“I felt like in 2009 when I was a part of it the first time it took us a minute to come together as a team. I remember specifically David Wright getting a base hit against Puerto Rico and we all rushed the field and it kind of like felt like we became a team at that moment,” he said. “We ran into a buzzsaw with Japan when we got to LA, but in talking to Paul Seiler, who’s the head of USA Baseball, he said that’s the overriding goal, right, to get them to understand that this is a competition, not an exhibition.”
“I think, for me, that is the biggest thing, how important it is to represent your country, how much passion some of the other countries have for the game and love for the game,” DeRosa continued. “It’s going to be intense. It’s been building from ‘06. So many have got – especially from the US side – kind of feel that groundswell of passion, you want to represent your country. I also think a lot of guys on the roster want to get a chance to be around Mike Trout,” he laughed.
There has been plenty of activity throughout the MLB offseason and although the big names have signed, the excitement will only continue to grow as the World Baseball Classic nears.
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