Chapter 1: What was the atmosphere like during the World Baseball Classic final?
In a way which we can feel good about baseball. Yay, baseball! And we were boots in the ground. The whole team was there. Me, Sean Spradling, Newsletter Wigs, Alex, and we had a very special guest on the podcast along with Alex Wiginton and Sean Spradling. Also, Russell, who is on the excellent, widely, hugely popular podcast, Fat Flips and Nerds, based in England.
Came all the way from London to go to the World Baseball Classic, so we had to let him join us. We didn't have to, but we wanted to let him join us for the recap, the WBC recap, after, obviously, Venezuela won. Congratulations to Venezuela. And by the way, I do want to give you some information about The all-WBC team, in case you haven't seen it.
I'm going to rattle them off just to set the scene here. Catcher, Austin Wells, Dominican Republic. First base, Luisa Rice, Venezuela. Second base, Bryce Terang, USA. The MVP of the WBC played third base, Mikael Garcia, Venezuela. Ezekiel Tovar, Venezuela, shortstop. Roman Anthony, USA. Fernando Testis, junior, Dominican Republic. Dante Nori, Italy. Shohei Itani, Japan. Paul Skeens, pitcher.
Logan Webb, pitcher. Aaron Nola, pitcher. There you go. I don't know if you wanted that, but I gave it to you anyway. All right. Well, we want to set the scene, but to set the scene about this podcast you're about to listen to, We were on the field, Lone Depot field. So how it worked was Venezuela celebrated. The crowd was there. And then the families came out and the players came out.
for Venezuela, and then also the Team USA. A lot of players came out to see their families, which it was the same dynamic that you would have after a World Series where the media is led on the field, they have the celebration on the field, the families are there, everyone's talking to everybody, with the exception that in the World Series, the losing team, they would not come on the field.
But in this case, losing team made it on the field because everyone was just there celebrating the great game of baseball. That's what everybody was doing. That was the motivation, and that's what we were doing. So with that said, we did the podcast, the aforementioned podcast, with Russell, with Alex, with Sean, myself, to recap the Venezuela victory and what it all meant.
We did it right smack dab in the field, and we actually did it so long that Then we were kicked off, and here we kind of rushed the ending a little bit. But that's okay, because we get to the meat and potatoes of what was what when it came to this WBC. And yeah, there was no Shohei Itani versus Mike Trout punctuation this, but it was a pretty good game.
It was really, really good semifinals leading into the finals. For this game, it was Bryce Harper who added the drama to it all, hitting the home run, the game-tying home run. And then, of course, our guy Gino Suarez doubles in the winning run. So... There was plenty of drama. It was a great game. The crowd was insane. The crowd was awesome.
All of it, as we said, the biggest takeaway is that this whole thing, this whole thing, this thing that they started all these years ago and have built up and built up and built up and built up, where we've landed, what we saw over the last few days is,
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Chapter 2: Who were the standout players in the World Baseball Classic?
But it's true. Everything we love about baseball, the drama, the attention, the passion, the fans, the talent, the plays, the clutch... Awesomeness. All of it. The media hinging on every single thing. And then at the end of the day, in this case, you have the safety net for these players where after it was all said and done, they're going to spring training, most of them.
And this isn't a, oh, my goodness, we fell off a cliff after a seven-month season. No. It felt like that while they were playing, but it wasn't that. It was the taste of what is going to happen seven months from now, whatever that is. All right. Anyway, I appreciate everybody listening. I will be now trekking across the state back over to Fort Myers for the final week of spring training.
But I just want to thank everybody who has been listening, consuming all the content. At BB isn't boring. At BB isn't boring. And also everybody, everybody. who purchased one of our WBC shirts, bbisntboring.com. bbisntboring.com. We still have some left, so go check those out, because you know what? Baseball no es aburrito. Baseball no es aburrito. Yep. Let it be said, let it be done. All right.
Through it all, it was a good time. Really good time. Now we head into the minutes, the ticking off before we hit the regular season.
Before we get to the final week of spring training, before we get to those conversations, before we get to other interviews that put the WBC in the rear view, let's take a minute, take a few minutes, listen to Sean, listen to Alex, listen to Russell, listen to Maul, listen to myself. As we stand smack dab, smack dab in the middle of where the WBC took place.
There's no place I'd rather be with three people I'd rather be talking to. Russell Eason, a bat flip of nerds all the way from London. Say hello. Hello. All right. And Newsletter Wigs. He doesn't know what he's doing here, but he's here. I'm here, baby. I don't know who let me on. And, of course, the great Sean Spradling, who is the king of this entire scene.
He just sits on the stage, and everyone looks at him and says, There's Sean. He has earned the right, more than any other reporter here, to be in the center of this. I want to start here with you, Sean. We're standing here on the field at Lone Depot Park, and they just celebrated. The families are still around. Venezuela has won. But you spend three years at a whack out of this.
Now it turns over to the next three years. For you, I don't care about the players. I don't care about the family. For you, what are you feeling? Man, that's a great question because I've mostly been trying to soak in, like, just, like, kind of let it sink in what I'm seeing with all the players and the families and stuff. For me, I think it's definitely, like...
like a sense of satisfaction of like this tournament is and was exactly what we expected it to be. Like this is, I mean, for me, it's the greatest baseball tournament in the world. And you look at like the way that the players reacted to winning and being with their families. And I mean, that's clear. It's the most meaningful baseball for them as well.
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Chapter 3: How did Venezuela celebrate their World Baseball Classic victory?
I don't care if it's March, November, whatever it is. This is a reminder of all the things we talk about why baseball is good. It's very, very, very sappy on what I'm doing right now. But why baseball is good. But this is the ultimate reminder. And Russell, you came all the way from London, right? Correct? Yep. Okay. So... Just what is what is your like? You come all the way for this.
You love baseball. I know you love baseball. And so when you experience something like this, does it is a cliche question, but does it make you fall in love with baseball even more? Oh, 100%. Like, I think when you watch any professional sport, there's a tinge of like, it's great seeing athletes competing at such a high level. But coming to this, it's almost like they're not competing.
I think watching Team Italy play for that whole entire tournament, they were all like... we're having fun. It's probably the first time in most of their guys' careers since they played on the Sandlot where they could be like, you know what? There isn't the stress about how this is going to affect my career.
I can just go have fun with a bunch of dudes that I didn't really know a week ago, but we're now all... best friends and family, and it just shows on the players. When they play in these games, they are just enjoying themselves to an extent which we just don't see in normal games. I think you just hit on something that's important, which I was thinking about as it was unfolding.
There's obviously a lot of pressure, but this isn't like the pressure of a seven-month season and everything's riding on one pitch. They understand that at the end of the day, they're going to move on, but still, they're not thinking about that... That's their safety net.
And as we know, when the players and the families of the losing team comes out to the field after this whole thing, that doesn't happen in the World Series. There's sobbing and everything else, but I think this is more of a celebration. It's also a celebration because Alex Wiginton is here, and he's just sitting there with his hat backwards. Baseball's an important hat, by the way, backwards.
And you're just soaking all of this in. You had no idea what this would be like. These guys did. All right, give me your take. I mean, I think the biggest takeaway for me is just, you know, the atmosphere here. You see hours before the game, there are so many people here celebrating. There's fans banging on drums.
I mean, you should have seen it out in right field when Venezuela took the lead in the ninth inning. I mean, I was getting a full shower of beer and popcorn. It was just, I've been to World Series games. I've been to the All-Star weekend. This is, it doesn't compare. It doesn't. So did you expect that? I knew it would be crazy. I just didn't know how crazy it would be.
I've never heard a park so loud in my life. Okay, so Sean, you've been to a few of these. This one was... It's all different because you have... Sometimes the group, the fan base is 50-50. I don't know what... I'm going to go around real quick. Where do you put this in terms of percentage of fans? Venezuela, U.S. fans? Oh, I would probably go...
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Chapter 4: What were the pivotal moments in the final game between Venezuela and the USA?
We didn't have a couple of web gems defensively. Obviously, Julio Rodriguez taking that one away. That's the thing. The Dominican... I'm sorry, not to interrupt.
go ahead no but i think we just honestly like it just didn't quite have like the same moments the finale and the finish like the atmosphere here today was definitely like a it was better of the final just because there were there are more venezuelan fans here than there were japanese fans here yeah last time to celebrate that win but i do feel we didn't quite have the same peak moments that we did last year
It's a great point because a Dominican-U.S. game, it was just like play, play, play, play. And there was all this reaction. But that crowd was, I don't know what that was, 60-40, whatever it is. This crowd was clearly swayed to Venezuela. So you're waiting. But as I said, guys, I felt after the Harper home run, which was the big thing,
big big moment after that i've seen crowds where they're just like oh really really toronto i saw it in toronto last year and then but the difference was this i could tell the venezuela crowd was like okay you want let's go let's go do you feel that yeah the way that when we were talking about that that i described it was like it felt like a boxing match where like venezuela took a big punch and then just kept fighting like it it didn't
deter them in any way like they were honestly they were like determined to get to this point like to win win it all and that was that was like a momentary setback that in the moment i thought that that was like game changing you thought us was gonna win i i thought there was a good chance i thought it was i thought it was going to totally shift the narrative and instead it was just a blip oh okay um before i forget i want russell i wanted to ask you this question
So we've had guys say that it's the best sporting event. We had Eddie Romero of the Red Sox come on the radio the other day saying that Puerto Rico Dominican was the best sporting event he had ever been to. He had been to Premier League. He had been to World Series. He had been to Final Fours and everything else. You lived a lot.
I think the big one that everybody points to is Premier League football, right? How does this compare? It's just different because there isn't a game-winning game. There isn't a championship in the Premier League. You don't have that. The Champions League, I've not been to one of those finals, but they're pretty epic. I think my personal experience goes more towards international rugby.
I've been to Rugby World Cup semifinals. Other crowds were rugby. Like, it is, it's passionate.
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Chapter 5: How did the crowd's energy influence the game outcomes?
The one thing that I will say is that, like, national anthems, like, in rugby get belted. Like, and you are, like, you stand still. Like, I said to Sean this the other time is that they don't really play the music that loud. So they let, basically, like, you hear the voices of everybody singing because they push that out. But no, like, this...
because baseball is top star and because it naturally builds that beautiful tension and moment you just don't have the same explosion in any other sport for me this is one of the reasons why I love baseball it just can all come down to a singular moment And then it just goes mental. But that's what we're talking about.
And we say it's sort of like, that's one of the things I love about, again, not to wax poetic about it, one of the things I love about baseball, and this was a microcosm of that, which is baseball, something happens, you talk about it, you analyze it, you predict what's going to happen next, and then boom, boom.
like it's cannon fire right it's like boom somebody makes a great play then you're reacting to that you can talk about it it's not like this other sports where you're like this you're going back and forth it's there there is a build-up and that was the thing about this there was such a build-up so i'm gonna go speaking of build-ups now that we've landed here takeaways from who is who is the big winner from coming out of this tournament player wise like who is the player that you feel like
exited this thing a whole lot different than they entered it sean since you're the expert and why will you let you guys think about it yeah you got one the first player that comes to mind and i'm not saying this because he's from he's in boston no no but by the way i guarantee you're taking alex's right willier abreu is oh yeah not where i'm not not where you thought i think that he had some of the biggest moments in this tournament yeah
Including in the championship. This is a young guy that has just won two years in the bigs that he's actually solidified himself as an all-star level player or close to it. This, I think, he...
Being a Venezuelan player, he had experienced Venezuelan atmosphere before, but to have his entire country behind him and do it on the world stage, I think that this is an experience that, as for a young player like that, there's not going to be anything that's going to be a bigger moment for him than this.
So I think when he gets to Game 7 in the World Series someday, he's going to be like, I've been there before. So I think he's the one for me. It's a good point, and I always wonder... This is maybe a different question, but who, what player uses this as the catapult?
Like, there's always a player, and maybe we talked about this the other day, which was who gets confidence, gets information, gets education, gets experience, and all of a sudden, they use that, and just, boom, there you go. You're a different player. You're a more confident player. Yeah. Yeah, I mean...
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Chapter 6: What were the key differences between this WBC and previous tournaments?
Even when Harper hit the home run, They come out of the dugout, and I'm almost feeling like, yeah, they're just coming out of the dugout because Venezuela comes out of the dugout. Again, totally unfair. But I'm anxious to get your guys' perception of where Team USA landed. Because much like last time, Dominican Republic came out of that one. That was a big, sad trombone.
And I'm not saying Team USA made it to finals, right? But for you, how did they come out of this? Yeah. I think going back-to-back to the championship and not coming out with a title is going to sting really bad for the guys that were on both teams, like Bobby Witt Jr., who last time I talked to him in 2023 after the championship, and he was just already hungry for 2026.
So the fact that they still have to wait for that is really frustrating. Yeah. I like, I think we talked about it a lot during the tournament. There was some, there, there was a gear that was, they, they didn't reach on the offensive side.
Like I, you look at the lineup, there's no holes in the lineup and yet they struggled to score runs in, in a lot of the games, even against inferior opponents or I'll say inferior pitching. Um, so I, I think that there's no doubt that, that us has some of the best baseball in the world. Um, And yet there's still something missing to when they get to this stage in the championship. I don't know.
They're just not able to put it together. And it's frustrating as a Team USA fan. But I have no doubt that they're going to bring the best team that they possibly can in 2029 or whenever the next tournament is. Now that you have Tarek Skubal and Paul Skeens in this tournament, there's no excuse ever again for any American pitcher not to pitch.
So I have no doubt that they're going to bring the talent. It's now how do we figure out how to get over that hump. whether it's team chemistry or what, I don't know. But they're close, but fell short twice. All right, so he answered that question perfectly, so I'm going to ask you guys, too. All right, any last thoughts? Real quick, Russell. Yeah, I think on Team USA, it just didn't click.
Whatever happened, they started rolling. I think they took their eye off the ball in that game against Italy, and it just kind of didn't really build back up from there. Yeah, the pitching was phenomenal, but it didn't work with that. They have to... They have to basically come out.
I don't know if it's going to be do their full dream team approach like it was in Atlanta 99 and be like, we're doing this. We can't lose. It's basically absolutely everything or nothing. All right. You got the last word, Alex. Summarize this in three words. Baseball is not boring. That's exactly right. That's it. See? See? Baseball is not boring. All right. All right. Good job.
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