A big chunk of this episode was just hearing from Eric after his time at the World Baseball Classic in Japan. You can watch the tournament on TV and get swept up in it that way, but hearing from someone who was actually there, in the middle of it, gives it a different kind of weight. You get a much better feel for just how big it all is, and how much the WBC really does matter in parts of the world where baseball means everything.
That naturally led us into talking about the tournament more broadly and what it means for the global game. Every time the WBC comes around, it reminds you that baseball is so much bigger than just MLB. Different crowds, different styles, different energy, different pride. It just feels different — in a good way.
Of course, once you start talking about the WBC for more than five minutes, you eventually end up in the eligibility conversation.
So we got into that too.
What should the rules actually be? How loose is too loose? How strict is too strict? Is it better for the tournament to have more good, competitive teams, even if some of the heritage links are a little stretchy? Or should it be a much harder line? It’s one of those arguments where everyone kind of has a point, which makes it way more fun to talk about and way harder to solve.
Then, because it was St. Patrick’s Day and because I clearly don’t know how to leave things alone, I decided I wanted to try and build a Team Ireland for the World Baseball Classic.
In my head, this felt like a fun little segment.
In reality, it turned into me disappearing down an ancestry and old-baseball rabbit hole and very quickly realising this was not going to be as straightforward as I thought. So rather than force a fake Team Ireland out of it, I pivoted and introduced the boys to the greatest Irish-born pitcher in baseball history — who, just quietly, is also the all-time Major League leader in balks.
We also spent a little time previewing the WBC final between Venezuela and the United States, which feels like a pretty brilliant championship matchup. There’s plenty of star power there, but it also says a lot about the tournament itself and how international baseball keeps growing. That’s probably my favourite thing about the WBC — it makes the sport feel bigger. It pulls baseball out of its usual little lane and reminds you how much passion there is for it all over the world.
To wrap things up, we had a bit of a chat about what we’ve seen during spring training as well. A few early observations, a few little takeaways, and a bit of that feeling you always get around this time of year where you can sense the MLB season creeping up fast.
So yeah, this was a fun one.
And with Opening Day not far away now, we’re only just warming up.
We’ve got more episodes coming before the season starts, including our first Destiny Draft a day or two before Opening Day, so there’s plenty more on the way.
