MIAMI — We look to sports as a way to share lessons about sportsmanship, teamwork, and respect for others. When the Dodgers visited the White House last year, Clayton Kershaw delivered a short but moving speech about the “selflessness and humility” that built a foundation for a championship.
“This organization exemplifies what it means to come together as one, for a greater purpose,” Kershaw said that day, “and to represent something so much bigger than themselves.”
He added: “I hope the 2024 Dodgers can serve as an inspiration to many like they were to me, not just in sports but in life, remembering to put others before ourselves. It moves a team and a society forward.”
At the World Baseball Classic, Team USA has excelled in sharing these values. If the United States wins the WBC championship Tuesday, when no outcome besides victory would have been satisfactory, the team will explode in celebration.
Then the team will have to wait and see what values the White House might share should it choose to commemorate the championship.
When the United States men’s hockey team won Olympic gold last month, President Trump welcomed the team to Washington and said he would present goaltender Connor Hellebuyck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
By that time, the White House TikTok account already had posted a video, doctored using artificial intelligence. The video purported to show Team USA star Brady Tkachuk taunting Canadians by saying, “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating f—s a lesson.”
Tkachuk, the captain of the Ottawa Senators, said the video was “clearly fake.”
Said Tkachuk: “It’s not my voice. It’s not what I was saying. I would never say that. That’s not who I am. … That would never come out of my mouth, and I never had that thought.”
If the U.S. wins Tuesday, a White House visit would be unlikely, at least any time before season’s end. The players are scheduled to scatter Wednesday, returning to spring training camps throughout Arizona and Florida.
But who knows what the White House social media team might have in mind? During the war with Iran, the White House has drawn criticism for a series of social media posts interspersing video footage of bombs dropping with video games and clips from movies and sports, including a 27-second spot featuring home runs from Barry Bonds, Cecil Fielder, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa amid the explosions.
“Pure American dominance,” read the caption.
Said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.): “War is not a joke. It is not a game. … Is it too much to ask for the commander-in-chief to just take his most solemn and sacred responsibility seriously?”
U.S. relief pitcher Griffin Jax, a captain in the Air Force Reserve, missed much of two minor league seasons while on active duty at Cape Canaveral. He did not see combat, but he knows more than his fair share of people who did, so I asked him what he thought of the video.
He had not seen it, so we watched it on my phone. He laughed. He did not consider it disrespectful in any way. To him, actual combat should not be equated to a video home run derby full of, well, bombs.
“Two different things,” Jax said. “But that’s all the stuff that happens behind the scenes that allows us to go play baseball.”
Kershaw said he had not seen the video and had no interest in doing so. He said he is aware Dodgers fans are split over whether the team should visit the White House again this year, but he said he is looking forward to it.
“I went when President Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”
Sports also teaches how to respond to adversity, and how to accept defeat. The Dominican Republic lost to the U.S. on Sunday, by one run, with the final out coming on a called third strike that very much looked like a ball.
Albert Pujols, the manager of the Dominican team and for that matter an American citizen for two decades, could have blasted the umpire for the blown call.
“I don’t want to focus on the last pitch. … I’m disappointed about the way that the game ended. I’m not going to criticize any of that,” Pujols said. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
When the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s prized tariffs were illegal, the president did not merely express disappointment but attacked the justices that ruled against him as “fools,” “lapdogs” and “a disgrace to our nation.”
There is no one right way to play baseball. One of the persistent story lines in the WBC: The Americans should have more fun, which confuses exuberance with passion. The Latin teams play with more flair, which is great. The U.S. channels professionalism and a fire within, which also is great.
On Sunday, Bryce Harper explained every culture can celebrate baseball in its own way and said he could not mimic Fernando Tatis Jr. even if he wanted to.
“I can’t dance a lick,” Harper said.
On Monday, at the conclusion of a round of batting practice, Harper tossed his bat toward an empty pitcher’s mound.
“I’m having so much fun,” he said to his teammates, with an impish grin.
Every culture also finds inspiration in its own way. In the United States, sports and the military long have been intertwined, for better or for worse.
Jax and teammate Paul Skenes, who both attended the Air Force Academy, invited the school’s baseball team to one of the WBC games. Before one game, U.S. manager Mark DeRosa invited Robert O’Neill, one of the members of the Navy Seal team that killed Osama bin Laden, to address the team.
“You never want it to get lost why you’re doing this, whatever that why is,” DeRosa said. “And a lot of people — like Paul Skenes said to me when he signed up for this, ‘I want to do this for every serviceman and woman who protects our freedom,’ and that’s why we wear USA across our chest.”
We cherish flyovers before big games. We honor veterans between innings. We remove our caps for the national anthem.
Trump did not remove his baseball cap when he saluted the flag-draped remains of the first American servicemembers killed in the Iran war.
And, after Venezuela beat Italy on Monday to advance to the championship game against the U.S., Trump posted on social media, but not to congratulate Venezuela. Two months after he ordered an invasion of the country and detained its leader, Trump posted: “Good things are happening to Venezuela lately! I wonder what this magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?”
As it turns out, the United States still practices diplomacy and sportsmanship, at least here. The men in the red, white and blue uniforms are first class.
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