Good Riddance To Red Asses

As Bryce Harper rounded the bases on his game-tying two-run homer in the eighth inning of Tuesday night's World Baseball Classic final, he exchanged a salute with his commanding officer, third base coach Dino Ebel, then moved to point at the American flag patch on his uniform. He looked at the wrong arm at first, mixing up the Stars and Stripes with the slightly larger Capital One patch on his other sleeve. That was a fairly representative moment of how unpleasant it was to watch Team USA in this tournament, and why it was a small mercy to watch them lose to Venezuela, 3-2. With all due respect to Comrade Ratto, the nationalistic pride on display by the Americans carried a different tenor than the WBC's other contenders. Of course it would. This game featured a nation that had recently bombed and invaded its opponents'. Rather than making an effort to keep that association at arm's length, Team USA embraced it. They saw what the U.S. men's hockey team did at the Olympics and thought to follow that but have even less fun in the process. What did that look like in practice? The Budweiser Clydesdales have stolen less valor than these flag-humping runners-up. It began well before Harper's salute to imaginary service. Inviting the looniest former Navy SEAL around to deliver a pregame speech for the team was one lowlight. Another was Cal Raleigh wearing a "Front Toward Enemy" T-shirt and being a jackass toward his actual Seattle Mariners teammate, whom he is scheduled to see every day for the next six months or so. As other squads like Italy showed it was possible to be American-born and still have fun at an exhibition baseball tournament, Team USA was gripping the bat too tightly, metaphorically and then literally in the final.