Los Angeles
The World Baseball Classic is a success. Monday night’s crowd of more than 25,000 at Dodger Stadium for the semi-final game between Puerto Rico and the Netherlands pushed the total attendance for the 16-team tourney past one million, far surpassing the 2006, 2009, and 2013 editions of the WBC.
Perhaps even more importantly, it really feels like an international tournament. Sure, it was fun seeing the Japanese fan with the samurai-style headband dance salsa with the Puerto Ricans in the straw hats and blonde wigs after P.R.’s 4-3 win in 11 innings—a music that is likely to stop should the Japanese get past the American nine tonight and face off against P.R. for the final. But that’s the kind of thing you were likely to see if you went to the Bronx to watch Ichiro.
No, it’s the Kingdom of the Netherlands team that gave this a real international feel. There were big Dutch guys—speaking real Dutch!—smoking cigarettes and wearing baseball caps. At a baseball game! I met a couple of big young Dutchmen in orange suits and with a Dutch flag. They were students at a community college in Seattle, where one of them pitched for the school team, and the other pitched in the summer back in the Netherlands.
And the Dutch have a really nice club—a premier closer in Kenley Jansen, who threw an inning’s worth of gas last night in the 10th to retire the Puerto Ricans in order, and one of the best infields in the world, with Jonathan Schoop at second, Andrelton Simmons at shortstop, and Xander Bogaerts at third. The Dominican infield, including Adrian Beltre, Manny Machado, and Robinson Cano, has much more power, as does the American infield with Paul Goldschmidt at first and Nolan Arenado at third, and great hands with Brandon Crawford at short. But the Puerto Rican infield is to my mind the best, with Carlos Correa moving from short to third in deference to Francisco Lindor, the anchor at short, and at second there’s Javier Baez, who this year will become the world’s favorite ballplayer.
The Puerto Rican infielders—with New York native T.J. Rivera of the Mets holding down first base—obviously love playing together; you can see it in the way they throw the ball around the infield hamming it up, with Correa and Lindor adding an extra throw to each other at the end. Correa and Rivera homered Monday night but the evening belonged to Baez. He turned several superior, acrobatic double plays, nailed a runner at the plate with a relay from the outfield, and stole third base with a slide (here) apparently influenced by Michael Phelps. As soon as Baez got on his feet he demanded a review because he knew his slide, twisting to his right side and swinging his arm out of the way, had avoided the tag. The replay showed he was right and the umpires called him safe. Baez hits, throws, and catches the ball, and runs—he is just a phenomenally fun player to watch, especially around the bases, on defense with his sophisticated tags, and on the base paths, with slides like the one he pulled off on Monday.
The night also showed why Major League Baseball should reconsider implementing the extra inning protocol that starting with the 11th inning puts runners on first and second with no outs. In the top of the 11th, the Dutch bunted runners over to second and third, and the Puerto Rican pitcher loaded the bases. With one out, the P.R. nine got out of the jam, and it went to the bottom half of the inning where they, too, bunted a runner to third. The Dutch pitcher loaded the bases, and Eddie Rosario drilled a sacrifice fly to center that drove home the winning run.
Wiser baseball minds than the game’s braintrust have already seen the main problem—you might as well start the 11th with the bases loaded and one out, my sister said to me after the Puerto Ricans did what the Dutch had done. “Everyone is going to bunt the runners over,” she explained. “And then the pitcher will walk the bases loaded to set up the double play. Who is not going to do it?”
I tried to think of alternate scenarios: Like a hitter who gets hit in the face every time he squares around for a bunt but has to go to the plate because he’s the last player left on the bench, so he is swinging away. I suspect even the manager who Ozzie Guillen used to call the guy who invented baseball wouldn’t try to out-think this one. “Well, J.J. really barreled the ball his last two at-bats, and I really liked his chances here, and he hit it on the nose, just right on the line at Simmons for the game-ending triple play.”
Nope, teams will move the runner over to third, the bases will be loaded, and it will come down to a sac fly, a wild pitch or passed ball, or a walk or base-hit. Might as well start with the bases loaded with one out. Which is ridiculous. No reason to change what works. You’ll see—this is the year that baseball makes extra innings great again, with the Chicago Cubs’ Javy Baez in a starring role.
