The American pastime may just be at the dawn of a global
renaissance.
The World Baseball Classic started this spring not to open up
international competition, but to build a united sports community
with the roots of American baseball and the excitement and
perspective of Latin American culture.
So why are so many livelong baseball fans not just ambivalent,
but downright antagonistic toward the inaugural WBC?
Because Americans are not thinking about what this international
tournament means to baseball. Instead, they have been annoyed
because the WBC is somehow infringing upon their cultural sporting
experience.
Baseball is distinctly and soothingly American, but too many
sports fans can’t get over the fact that it’s March and
we’re talking about anything other than college
basketball.
March Madness is the single most exciting sporting event in the
country, and people have built a culture out of filling out their
brackets the morning after Selection Sunday.
To take fans away from their bracketology and ask them to
actually invest themselves in another sport, even if it is
baseball, is just not possible. Again, why is it too much to
ask?
Because American sports fans are too insulated by what they
know, and what seems right, to understand that the WBC is not just
“glorified spring training,” as a friend of mine
described it.
To the United States, it is just a segue on ESPN’s
“SportsCenter” from Digger Phelps and Dick Vitale to
Barry Bonds dressing up in drag.
But that is an American complex. The WBC reaches beyond just the
aggravated sports fans and uninvolved athletes of American culture.
The proof is in the games being played, and the very different
reception from other countries.
The Dominican Republic-Venezuela game Tuesday morning was truly
an eye-opening experience.
First, we have found yet another way to spend a morning watching
a sport that isn’t a highlight reel or a rerun of the World
Series of Poker. But most importantly, it illustrated exactly how
much baseball has grown in the last 25 years, and what American
fans can learn from the Caribbean fans.
The two Caribbean teams have an interesting sports background.
Baseball was introduced to the Dominican Republic by the Cubans
during the 10 Year War of 1868-1878, while Venezuelans learned the
game from U.S. oil workers in the 1920s.
The stands were filled with music and dancing, as the
Venezuelans and Dominicans who have immigrated to Orlando, Fla.,
““ where the game was played ““ brought the mania of a
soccer match to baseball.
The ultimate success of the WBC, at least in my humble opinion,
is to marry the nuanced and highbrow fandom of American baseball
with the passion of these singing and dancing fans.
This kind of change doesn’t just have to do with the
revenue growth of baseball organizations, who support the WBC only
because it taps into the global market. The change has a social
relevance that should not be overlooked. Bringing together people
who have long inhabited the same hemisphere but still live in a
completely separate universe transcends any box score.
To those who think I am being naive or romanticizing the
influence of sports, answer me this one: What matters more to
people and invokes the most earnest change if not sports or family?
It is not any geopolitical movement or philosophical tirade. There
is at least one place where Fidel Castro and George W. Bush can
find common ground.
If only this country’s stubborn fans and athletes would
look beyond themselves and out into a much more promising baseball
landscape.