What a Finish

 The 2026 World Baseball Classic has concluded. The best and worst thing (for me at least) about it is that it's so short and it comes and goes in what feels like five seconds. But in those five seconds whoo boy, the pressure amps up to 10 and the do-or-die nature of the semifinals (and subsequent rounds) get real fun real quick.

It's a great contrast to how most baseball regular seasons are 100+ game marathons. The run scoring system's flaws and all.

This time a new country claimed the Championship, Venezuela.

Congrats to them, that country is a powerhouse when it comes to producing top tier baseball talent and it's very understandable that they had the kind of run where they managed to win against the heavily favored teams. Although them doing it without Jose Altuve or Pablo López makes it even more incredible.

Overall, I do admit that after Japan got bounced my enthusiasm dropped a lot but that's mostly just as someone with a rooting interest. As a neutral baseball watcher I was still tuned in because I knew that USA vs the Dominican Republic would be a nail-biter, and it was although I was expecting more runs from both teams. Italy's run was also fun just because it had a bunch of players I like.

The coaching staff had Cervelli, Jorge Posada and Dave Righetti. The roster had very likeable and promising talents like Vinnie Pasquantino, Jakob Marsee (top prospect traded to the Miami Marlins in the Luis Arraez trade), Kyle Teel (top prospect traded to the Chicago White Sox in the Garrett Crochet trade) and Jac Caglianone (former top tier prospect).

Plus a fair bit of former New York Yankees prospects I remember a lot from my days as a prospect-nut on top like Ron Marinaccio, Greg Weissert, Mickey Gasper and Renzo Martini.

These three cards are all long gone but man was it fun to remember these guys

I came very close to breaking and splurging on a baseball card or two (Marsee is just so good, the San Diego Padres might end up regretting that) but I didn't.

Last time I got swept up in emotions and made some big splashes related to Team Japan but those cards didn't stay with me very long, and I had even stronger and better reasons to keep them than I would for most cards. Given that, I knew whatever I got would end up back on the market in a few months. So I didn't bother.

Which honestly kind of tells me that my time as an avid collector is probably done. I'm not going to say I'm retired because I still like to pick up the occasional card every now and then, plus it's a lot easier to still collect sports cards when foodstuffs exist here.

Case in point I just bought some Calbee chips since I wanted a snack and I opted for the one that came with free baseball cards. Folks I've got to say, having several stores sell potato chips that come with free baseball cards a brisk walk from my office is peak (as the youth say).

But these can be passively accumulated (and subsequently dumped onto others when I can find time to run to the post office). Looking at listings on Yahoo Auctions or Mercari though like how I used to look through eBay and COMC, yeah no I've got other things to do now.

Anyway I got side-tracked. The WBC has come and gone, it was very fun and I'll be very excited to see what happens in 2029. Japan and the Dominican Republic are 100% going to come back wanting to reclaim the throne, USA will still be there and should be in the same boat but we'll see, Venezuela's going to try to protect its title and hopefully Puerto Rico will be there to give it 100%. Plus there might just be another Cinderella run from Italy or a country like the Kingdom of the Netherlands or Nicaragua or Australia.

For now though, the regular season is like a week away.

Baseball still rules.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.