This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Charles Curtis.
We are one game away from the 2023 World Baseball Classic ending, and I’m so sad to see it go.
What’s stood out to me, especially in the epic semifinal games that’s led up to USA vs. Japan — Mike Trout vs. Angels teammate Shohei Ohtani! — is how joyous the whole event has been, and how home runs and strikeouts alike have been celebrated appropriately: With the childlike elation and exuberance they deserve.
On the other side of things, you have the frustration and disappointment — A glove slam by a reliever after a Trea Turner home run, Rowdy Tellez snapping his bat like a twig after a strikeout on Monday night … this is what we need to see more of in baseball.
You don’t see pitchers throwing at batters’ heads for celebrating a dinger too much. You don’t see anger over a pitcher fist pumping over a key strikeout. That’s because this is what we need in baseball, a sport that’s had to change some very key rules to attempt to stay relevant in the future.
So, I beg of you, baseball players: Next time you see a huge bat flip or a pitcher screaming as he walks to the dugout, think back to the last few weeks and what the 2023 WBC has meant for the game. Use it as a blueprint. Get rid of the stuff that tamps down the joy you saw here.
As Mexico manager Benji Gil said on Monday night, “Japan advances, but the world of baseball won tonight.”
Exactly. Tis is what baseball should be.
Quick Hits: Sweet 16 rankings … Some under-the-radar NFL free agency signings … and more.
— Here are our power rankings of the men’s Sweet 16 teams before they play later this week.
— The best under-the-radar NFL free agency signings from this offseason.