THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC

The baseball tournament this year had some wonderful moments. The one that struck me the most was when a Japanese baseball player hit a home run and then the ball was being passed around the stadium, in the same way that a teacher would pass around a fossil for everyone in the class to see.

Can you imagine this same event taking place with a United States crowd? Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run in Toronto and the guy who caught it had to be escorted out of the stadium by security- and that was in Canada. Americans would get into a fist-fight for a ball.

At the World Cup, the Japanese fans were cleaning up the stadium in Qatar after a soccer match. That is one major difference between a collectivist society and an individualist society.

Besides the fans for a moment, there was a beautiful moment in the United States dugout during one of the play in games. Nolan Arenado had to be pulled late in one of the games because he was hit by a pitch on his wrist. The entire dugout completely halted, looking on to see if Nolan was all right. Nolan turned out to be fine and played in the final, where the United States lost a heartbreaking game 3–2 with Shohei Ohtani striking out his major league teammate Mike Trout for the final out.

The tournament reminded me baseball’s greatness as a sport and how it has the power to bring people together from all walks of life, whether on the field or cheering on from the stands.