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Can you hear that sweet spring sound? The cracking of bats, the popping of mitts, and the ptheew of sunflower seeds being sucked in and spit out en masse.

That's the symphony of baseball, baby!

And this spring brings back one of baseball's greatest global manifestations: the World Baseball Classic (WBC).

Most easily described as "Baseball's World Cup", the WBC has skyrocketed in popularity in the U.S. since it first debuted in 2006 with little fanfare. That year, the American squad consisted mostly of over-the-hill veterans and they were bounced in the second round after losses to South Korea and Mexico. They came up short yet again 2009 and 2013, failing to reach the semifinals either time. Finally in 2017, the Americans broke through and defeated Japan in a close 2-1 semifinal before handily defeating Puerto Rico 8-0 in a technically-all-USA final game.

Then the 2023 edition had an ending fit for a manga.

Team USA down 1 run in the 9th inning. 2 outs. Coming to the plate? Los Angeles Angels future Hall of Famer Mike Trout, who had one thing - one swing - on his mind: sending a ball deep into the Miami night and keeping the American's championship hopes alive.

Mike Trout's opponent on the mound? His then-still Los Angeles Angels teammate and baseball unicorn, Shohei Ohtani, whose two-way exploits made him a living mythical figure in the sport. When he's not crushing home runs of his own, Ohtani can touch 100 MPH with his fastball. Japan's manager Hideki Kuriyama called on Shohei to take the mound and save the game for the Samurai.

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​Shohei struck out Trout on a 3-2 slider for the ages and Marlins Park erupted into raccous pandemonium​! (skip to 2:30 above if you want to get to the good stuff)

But perhaps you hear a different, more dour arrangement these days. Hateful rhetoric. Rising tensions. Bombs away.

Just scroll any news feed for thirty seconds and you might wonder why we, as a society, should we pretend with the frivolity and civility of a global sports tournament? I've seen similar sentiments about the Winter Olympics that just passed and the North American World Cup on the horizon this summer.

It's a fair question. In my most cynical moments, I'd argue what truly does matter in the grand scheme of things? When is the world not burning? Why not enjoy some bread and circuses while we try to tune out Nero's shrill fiddle?

I'm not out to convince you to care about the baseball on the field. At this point, either you're in this ship or you watched it sail long ago.

But if I've learned anything over the past couple of years, the question isn't whether to engage with while the world when you want to turn inward; it's how. And from my experience, the World Baseball Classic provides an outlet for positive cultural exchange on both a personal and global level when we need it the most.

For the next ten days at least, the World Baseball Classic is my answer. Let me tell you why.

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I attended my first (only only) WBC game nearly nine years ago to the day. Almost one full year out of undergrad, I was splitting time between my childhood bedroom in Fort Lauderdale and friends' couches in Washington D.C. I happened to be home in South Florida when Team USA kicked off their eventual championship-winning campaign against Colombia down in Miami.

I snagged the cheapest ticket I could find on resale, threw on my black Marlins jersey, grabbed a semi-wrinkled American flag from the laundry room, and made the solo, hour-long drive down to Miami. Leaning into a tip I learned online, I drove a couple blocks away from the stadium and found a family offering up parking for $10 in their yard-turned-lot. Much better deal than any stadium lot and I got to support a small, family-run business.

A middle-aged Cuban man holding a handmade white "PARKING - $10" sign locked eyes and motioned for me to pull into one of the hastily-outlined parking spots in his yard. I could tell he was gearing up for a strained interaction in broken English to try and accomodate me, but his face lit up cuando empecé a hablar español.

In a couple minute convo, I learned that his son had the idea of sectioning off the yard into five sections to sell parking for each of the WBC games in the hopes of going to one of them himself. Cuba unfortunately wasn't slotted to play in Miami, but his son really wanted to see the superstar Dominican Republic squad play Colombia in a couple of days. So they spun up a brief venture with minimal resources to earn it. Isn't that the American dream in action?

"¡Gózalo!", he shouted as I was walking away.

"¡Igual!", I replied.

Marlins games are known for their sparse attendance (one Onion headline read Florida Marlins Delay Game Until Their Fan Shows Up), but the World Baseball Classic is another story. By first pitch, the then yet unsponsored Marlins Park was packed to the brim, with about a 50/50 split between the United States and Colombia. I sat next to a late 20's Colombian-American couple which would be my Spanglish banter partners for the next three hours.

All night the park was alive with Latin flair, salsa drums and trumpets continuously permeating the air, all until Baltimore Orioles legend Adam Jones walked it off in the 10th inning with a single and sent the USA fans home happiest.

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With the exception of the Perfect Game I saw thrown by the late, great Roy Halladay, this was the most exciting game of baseball I had ever been to. The game itself was fantastic, sure, but as it so often is with baseball, the little things added up to provide a tipping point. The convo with the Cuban dad in his front yard, the lively drums and horns that made any dead space feel like a jazz performance, surprisingly good arena empanadas washed down by an overpriced yet appropriately strong margarita.

The sport has been exported, adopted, and transformed by cultures across Latin America, Asia, and now beyond. When those cultures bring it back to a tournament stage, they bring themselves with it - their music, their flags, their food, their alma. It's not just baseball anymore; it's a gateway between cultures.

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Barack Obama understood this. In March 2016, he and Raúl Castro sat together at a Tampa Bay Rays vs Cuba exhibition baseball game in Havana as the country normalized relations, making him the first U.S. president to visit the island nation in nearly ninety years. He used baseball as a tool to break bread (and cracker jacks, presumably) over nine innings. Was it part PR stunt? Sure. And we got a great GIF of both leaders awkwardly doing the wave out of it. But I think it was something more - providing a shared vocabulary for two nations that were once seconds away from triggering a nuclear war.

And if international diplomacy isn't your thing, what about the kind global human interest stories that you simply cannot manufacture.

Take the Czech Republic. Their country first was first introduced to baseball in the aftermath of World War II by playing club games against U.S. Army servicemen. Their roster was made up mostly of amateurs - teachers, pharmacists, electricians, a doctor or two - who suit up on weekends and dream of the big stage.

Somehow, they qualified for their first World Baseball Classic in 2023 found themselves up 1-0 in the third inning against Japan in the Tokyo Dome. Ondřej Satoria - the electrician - stepped onto the mound against Shohei Ohtani, baseball's anime protagonist. Satoria struck him out. On three straight pitches.

After the game (which Japan came back to win 10-2), Ohtani and the entire Samurai Japan team signed Satoria's jersey.

Are you going to sit there and tell me that didn't matter to him? That it didn't matter to every Czech kid watching? That it didn't, even briefly, matter to the rest of us who got to revel vicariously in the euphoria of an Average Ondřej who struck out the best baseball player to ever live?

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I know what you might be thinking: this is sports-washing over real problems. Global events get leveraged by governments and corporations alike to paper over issues like nationalism and human rights violations that deserve sincere scrutiny.

But here's the distinction I'd draw: there's a difference between ignoring the world's ills, and choosing, deliberately, to also look at the parts of it that are working. The WBC isn't a geopolitical instrument. It's a vehicle for a bunch of guys who grew up loving baseball getting to represent where they came from - and in many cases, it's the highest honor of their careers, above any World Series ring or individual award they may never receive.

National pride can be viewed negatively because it gets conflated with nationalism. They aren't the same thing. One says we're better than you while the other says, this is where I'm from and I want to show you what we've got. The WBC is the latter. It's one of the healthiest outlets we have for countries to compete and assert their identities - on a diamond, not a battlefield.

The world doesn't stop turning while it's burning. In fact, these are the times it's more important than ever to connect with one another on the values we share. I'm not naive enough to think that baseball can save the world, but maybe it can be bridge to a better one.

Batter up,
Kevin