MLB stars proudly echoing Aaron Judge's WBC take (but no one else is getting heat)

If you've ever been to a World Baseball Classic game, you know that, whether it matters significantly to you or not, there's a tremendous amount of national pride at stake, resulting in an atmosphere that's completely unlike a Major League Baseball game of significance. If you've only ever watched the WBC on TV, you can still feel it emanating from the boundaries of your set, outright vibrating when Venezuela, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic delivers a crucial single or a key out.

All of this to say that whether or not you, personally, would rather win a World Series title than a WBC championship has zero bearing on the overwhelming enthusiasm of a decibel-peaking Classic crowd. When asked about the environment, Aaron Judge spoke his truth, which also happened to be the truth: it's not only different. It's barely comparable.

"It's been bigger. The World Series I was in. The crowd here, the crowd we had when we played Mexico. It's bigger & better than the World Series," Judge told the media after Team USA defeated the Dominican Republic. "The passion these fans have. There's nothing like it."

Ironically, Judge hadn't even experienced the full breadth of the crowd's power. He was probably trying to hype up the American crowd in service of the event. Because the cheering was levels more powerful in Venezuela-Italy or Dominican Republic-Nicaragua, and that intensity will be present at the final, which should feel like a road game in a hostile nation for Judge and Co.

Unsurprisingly, when other stars like Maikel Garcia of the Royals acknowledge that reality, it goes unremarked upon. What Garcia said after Venezuela's win over Italy could certainly be classified as more direct shade towards his "home" city than anything in Judge's quote — and yet, not a peep. People understood. They understood instantly.

(And, yes, there was probably an element of racism in the reaction — "Well, of course he thinks that. But you're an American. You should know better. You should know where your allegiance lies.")

New York sports radio hosts insist Aaron Judge was insulting Yankees crowds. That's insane.

Or maybe it's only Yankees-flavored sports radio hosts who are sensitive enough to believe a World Series game in the Bronx is supposed to be rowdier than an entire nation bleeding for the crown. Can the Baseball Take Industry find a happy medium on showing emotion? One minute, it's excessive. The next, it's what Team USA should be doing. Suddenly, Judge isn't supposed to acknowledge the undulating energy in the crowd, noting that it's objectively different than a Fall Classic contest in the whipping November wind. It's there, and we hate it, but it's not there, and don't you dare compare it to where we are.

March in Miami at a celebration of the nations raised on baseball vs. the chilly fall in a city straining to learn if their previous 175 games will soon feel like a waste. If you can't see why that feels different — and if you haven't seen it over the past two weeks — you can't be helped. Perhaps nothing needs to be changed other than the way we regurgitate everything Aaron Judge says or does through an insidious framing device of letting someone down.

"So the passion that these fans are ... showing for their team is ... bigger and better than Yankee fans?" sneered WFAN's sentient backward hat Tommy Lugauer on Monday's show. Tommy is, of course, a Mets fan masquerading as someone who actually cares.

Long answer? It's an entirely different variety of cathartic escape and global bonding.

Short answer? Yes.

It's better than the Super Bowl. It's better than the one-night-only, for-all-the-marbles largest sporting event in the nation. It transcends boundaries. It may not be for you, but it's hardly a stretch to say the baseline energy is unmatched in American sport.

Don't worry. Judge still appreciates Yankees fans and his home crowd. If he didn't, he would have left after 2022. And leaving Major League Baseball to play in the World Baseball Classic full-time isn't an option. Have no fear. The Tommy Lugauers of the world can be marked "safe".

For now, all we're left with is another example of something that anyone but Aaron Judge is allowed to say without repercussions.