I am not typically late for things. Except, one morning in March of last year, I was running late to a doctor’s appointment for my wife and me. She was already there, having let me sleep in since I had been up late the night before. Not for work or anything. But to watch Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic.

Why would a Catholic kid from Cleveland care about Jewish baseball so much (and more important, why would his wife tolerate the “so much” part)? Answer: Because it was baseball, in the “can you believe this is happening?” sense of it. As an American, I obviously was pulling for Team USA going into the WBC. (Spoiler: We won.) But the qualification of Team Israel into the field of 16 teams was a bit of a surprise. The success it ended up having in the competition—winners of its first four games as huge underdogs, only bowing out the day I arrived tardy at the doctor’s office only to discover my wife would be having twins—was completely shocking.