It has been excruciating, but the wait is over. Baseball is back and both Chicago teams have interesting storylines entering this season. I’ll get to those in a minute. First, I want to express gratitude to the World Baseball Classic for bringing back some joy to my cold, dead, baseball heart.
The three-week tournament provided a much needed energy boost to what has been a tedious spring training slog. Baseball is our summer companion, but the MLB variety comes with unwritten rules and gatekeeping that keeps it from reaching its full potential. The WBC was cool, fun and colorful. It’s a reminder of how global the game is. Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout to end the title game was like a Hollywood script. It was a distilled version of the game itself. Pitcher versus batter. Top player versus top player. The probability of that matchup happening was tiny. And we got to witness the magic in the highest leverage situation possible. How can you not love that?
