Team USA, Aaron Judge and everything that went wrong at the World Baseball Classic

For the third tournament in a row, Team USA made the World Baseball Classic final. For the second time in a row, they lost that game. Last tourney, back in 2023, it was to Japan. On Tuesday night, it was to Venezuela. Both were hard-fought battles and engaging contests from start to finish.

But there was an eerie feeling in the air once the 2026 WBC kicked off. Team USA was viewed unfavorably, for a number of reasons. It very much felt like there wasn't that organic, national and prideful support. There might've been some of it, but it surely wasn't the prevailing sentiment.

First off, the world at large (Americans included) has generally disapproved of what the United States' government has been doing. Their domestic and foreign policy, whether you agree with it or not, is aggressive, disruptive, and a departure from what voters thought they were getting. (That's about as nice as we can be about such a topic.) The overall rhetoric is divisive. The discourse has never been more polarizing. The government, on both sides of the aisle, feels like it's in shambles. Most Americans are victims of political theater.

Secondly, and of far less importance from a humanity standpoint, New York Yankees star Aaron Judge was named the captain of the 2026 team, which was always going to be a recipe for disaster. He's a Yankee. Everybody who isn't a Yankees fan absolutely despises the Yankees. And it was shown throughout the tournament. That also affected widespread support for the team.

Every impactful moment Judge had was undermined. Every failure was magnified. Mr. America "El Presidente" Dave Portnoy couldn't even rally behind his own country that he supposedly holds so dear for a measly three hours. He had to get the Judge criticism in there because of his Boston fandom.

In the end, though, two Red Sox were at the forefront of the loss. Garrett Whitlock blew the game in the ninth, and Roman Anthony struck out as the United States' last hope. But of course ... it's captain Aaron Judge's fault. How could he possibly not have done a better job making these guys perform better?! Why didn't he stop Kyle Schwarber from striking out three times?! Portnoy had the classic Boston fandom moment, too: watch the entire game, claim you're invested in every waking moment, claim you're rooting your heart out, and then when the end result doesn't go your way, tell the world you never cared anyway. Teflon Don. Can't be beat.

And from the beginning, Team USA was followed by nothing but controversy. From the toxic Judge discourse once he was named captain to the Tarik Skubal nonsense to Cal Raleigh's stunt with Randy Arozarena to Robert J. O'Neill serving as a motivational speaker for whatever reason, the end result still wouldn't have been good enough.

If they lost, Judge was never the guy for the job because he's choked so many times as a Yankee. If they won, well ... yeah, this is a sport America invented and they have the best roster by far — it was nothing but a formality for them to walk away with the trophy.

The Yankee hatred was blatant and unabashed. There were constant comparisons made to previous Team USA captains Mike Trout and David Wright despite the fact those teams never captured gold. The only squad that did it (back in 2017) had no captain and was led by the inimitable Jim Leyland.

This time? It was Mark DeRosa at the helm. Was he the best choice? Probably not. He's never managed before, outside of the 2023 WBC team. He was also handcuffed with various pitching decisions due to restrictions and team requests. And he made an unforgivable comment suggesting Team USA advanced past pool play when they didn't. Everybody waiting for such a moment to pounce on did just that to emphasize American arrogance and stupidity.

That's what really set things off. Coupled with the O'Neill stunt, American culture came heavily into question. Every country at the WBC marketed the best aspects of their culture: music, enthusiasm, passion, food, chants, inclusiveness, camaraderie, dancing. The United States? Devoid of character. Cold. Corporate. Their celebration was a military salute. Their energy paled in comparison to nearly every other opponent. Though everybody will devalue their participation and say they "didn't care", we'd push back and say they did. They did greatly, in fact. But that was the problem. You couldn't tell. Because only those who are emotionally unavailable could understand. They didn't even have the same passion as Team Italy, which rostered 23 players BORN IN THE UNITED STATES.

Team USA couldn't harness WBC enthusiasm as the home country

This event was hosted on American soil, and the otherworldly, electric crowds featured fans of the other countries. And then you have "greatest and most powerful country on earth" getting its feelings hurt when Judge says the WBC crowds are "bigger and better" than those at the World Series.

But remove all of that. Take away the politics. Take away the culture. Take away the passion. Take away any other element of this tournament that might have turned you off from rooting for the US.

The discourse around Judge's captaincy represented all that is wrong with this country. There is no "coming together." There is no "setting aside differences." There is no sacrificing anything for "the greater good". The "fandom" represented pure selfishness, finger-pointing, negativity and ill-will. It was all about waiting to say "I told you so" for everybody out there who hated the Yankees and Judge (in addition to those were who rooting against the US for non-baseball reasons).

For being the "greatest country in the history of the world", we sure do have a lot of petulant children controlling the narrative. We sure do have a lot of brainless, lazy, toxic mouth-breathers trying to constantly tear down professionals at the highest level. People who dedicate their entire lives in an attempt to be the best at what they do are subject to criticism from those who have quite literally never done anything with their own lives.

And before you say anything, yes, we know we can be critical of the Yankees. But we are also living and breathing everything that they do because we love the sport. We are there with them every step of the way, when they go on a deep playoff run or when they flame out after an unforgivable summer collapse. We are not baselessly taking aim at somebody or something for the sake of spiking blood pressure. We are watching every pregame, all nine innings, and every postgame, and building a community of individuals who like to discuss baseball and share dreams and fears. We are not a fleet of Red Sox troll accounts run by 16-year-olds in the mentions of Yankees beat writers whose sole purpose is to try and ruin somebody else's day.

This was the World Baseball Classic if you were active on the internet. In theory, we were supposed to, for a moment, forget about the political turmoil (as many other countries were able to do ... though, we will say, that's not an easy thing for some people to do). We were supposed to put aside our fandoms. We were supposed to have a fun time watching a game that is starting to have a greater influence in bringing the world together.

Instead, we got more of the same. We got the American news cycle in baseball form. The busted algorithm. We got the overall feeling of disdain that often pours over you every time you open a social media app. And we watched the entire thing from start to finish but struggled to find a way to enjoy it.

So ... we guess we got the true American cultural experience? Maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising or felt as empty as it did.