One of the most electric moments in baseball over the last decade didn’t happen in October. It didn’t come under the weight of a 162-game grind, or for the prize of a Commissioner’s Trophy. It came in March, with two countries stopping time, holding their breath, as Shohei Ohtani toed the rubber 60 feet and six inches from his then-longtime teammate, Mike Trout. Two of the greatest players in Major League Baseball history stared each other down in the championship game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic. Millions of people stopped what they were doing and watched the high-stakes showdown. Social-media videos showed commuters gathered around small cell-phone screens in airports, train stations and stores to witness Ohtani striking out Trout and winning the title for Japan. At the time, it felt like compelling theater. Three years later, we can now view that celebrated at-bat as a revelation.For years, the WBC was treated as an exhibition with too many risks attached to make the tournament truly meaningful. It disrupts spring training and the calculated management of workload build up, and it increases the potential for injury. Due to the timing of the tournament, players typically turned down requests to participate, citing their health and the importance of the MLB season. It was customary to expect just a sprinkling of big-name stars to play in the WBC, when the event was considered an unnecessary novelty that was rudely squeezed into spring training. Team USA’s roster is loaded with All-Stars and MVPs. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images) Now, we’re seeing stacked rosters that resemble the Avengers of baseball for almost every top contender. It’s now more surprising if the game’s top players aren’t participating, with a foreknown injury serving as the only suitable excuse to miss it. The emotion, urgency and viewership we saw in the last WBC, peaking during that Trout-Ohtani at-bat, suggested that the tournament meant more — globally — than it used to, and maybe even more than anyone thought it would. People delayed boarding their WiFi-less planes or getting to where they needed to go in order to absorb even another second of the dramatic action. How many sporting events still exist that can stop time like that?The WBC is no longer a sideshow orbiting Major League Baseball. The tournament has shifted to spotlighting what a sport can look like when national pride, global stars and meaningful stakes collide. That shift says as…
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2026-03-03 20:30:20
