In the moments before Italy played Australia at the inaugural World Baseball Classic, Tommy Lasorda popped into a cramped auxiliary clubhouse at Disney’s Champion Stadium, gathered the paisans around and delivered a speech that 11 years later still resonates with Jason Grilli.
“Who better to get you pumped up for Team Guido than one of the best in the business?” the Toronto Blue Jays reliever recalls with a grin. “He shoved us in a small shower and put a couple lumps in our throat with everything he said: ‘It’s a unique opportunity with the names on your back to represent the one on the front, because without the A, E, I, O or U you probably wouldn’t be wearing that Italian jersey.’
Guys were crying, lumps in their throats, chills on their arms. It was just something I’ll never forget. One of those unique moments in sports.”
The profound sense of nationalism that can be experienced at the Classic – the fourth edition of which opens Monday when Israel takes on South Korea in Seoul – is one of the primary elements of the tournament players must adjust to.
Long after the games have passed, such moments of patriotic pride tend to be what sticks with participants.
For Jose Bautista, back on the Dominican Republic roster this time around after missing it in 2013, that feeling hit not only when David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez and Moises Alou addressed the 2009 team, but more so when he heard the country’s national anthem before the first game.
“We never get to hear it (during the MLB season) and it does invoke different emotions that normally don’t come up,” says Bautista. “If it was played every single day, it might be a little different, too, because you could get used to it. But you’re wearing your country’s name and colours, the flag, you can see it, playing the anthem.
“You also know the other team is playing for the pride of their country. It makes it a lot different.”
Also different is that the tournament offers a window into the baseball culture of each country, which gives the games a vibe very separate from the buttoned-down melting pot of the big leagues.
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The Dominicans, for instance, displayed their boundless exuberance and joy on the field en route to the 2013 title. One highlight was closer Fernando Rodney breaking out in the dugout a lucky plaintain sent from a family member home in the Dominican during a semifinal win over the Netherlands.
“The platano said, ‘If you keep me close to you, you’re going to get the win,’” Rodney joked at the time.
For the Canadians, a couple of enduring traditions are a road hockey game just before the tournament begins, and O Canada sing-alongs on the team bus as it pulls up to the ballpark during the event, players pounding on the windows as they bellow the words.
“The road hockey game is pretty symbolic of our rallying cry – for the guys it’s really us and Canadian and brings everyone together,” says Greg Hamilton, Baseball Canada’s director of national teams. “Veterans and rookies, it’s really a binding tradition that we have.
“There’s a pretty good understanding of the international game and the patriotism that comes with it. Most of these guys have worn the uniform before, so it’s not like we assemble a whole new group of guys all the time. We’re bringing in new guys all the time, but our clubhouse has a certain national team experience to it, which is a good thing.”
For the Italians in 2006 – a mix of nationals from the old country and descendants of immigrants to the United States – the World Baseball Classic was a grand new stage, a baseball experience unlike any previous.
That’s why Grilli still remembers Lasorda’s speech so vividly.
“Italian pride. What it meant,” Grilli says of Lasorda’s message. “The saying always is, if you’re Italian and you’re around more Italians, you become more Italian, and even if you’re not Italian, the same goes. In that room you felt it. I’ve been fortunate to also become a citizen of Italy through the whole process and I’m living the American dream. I think about it all of the time. You talk about family. My grandfather has passed away, but he became a citizen when the whole naturalization process was happening. There’s a lot of lineage, history, what your family is, tradition. It was a unique opportunity and baseball came in the mix of it.
“My great-grandparents, they came over here for that opportunity, to Ellis Island. Learning all of that, the speech, everything in that moment, I was certainly crying and had a lump in my throat because it all came to a real moment. You hear about it, you talk about it and you kind of take it for granted, so to speak. But Lasorda put a good stamp on it and I think it hit everybody on the team.”
— With files from Ben Nicholson-Smith
