The Real World Series?

Baseball is not the global game that soccer is, that's true. But its actual world championship - the "World Baseball Classic - is not played in October.

For more than a century, baseball has indulged one of America’s more charming — or is it least charming? — absurdities: the sense of being the only game in town.

Hence ths US business operation called Major League Baseball calls its season-ending best-of seven playoff the “World Series,” even though the league is made up entirely of US teams, with one outlier in Toronto (which some Americans actually do know is in Canada. though Trump wishes to annex it).

It’s the best baseball league on earth, without question, but not the only one. The indifference to this basic fact could be seen as simply a reflection of MLB’s superiority. It could be viewed as a matter of tradition and little else. But as an American expat I cannot help but attach it to a wider arrogance: the overpowering disinterest in, and indifference toward the rest of the world.

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Such is the cyninism about everything today that some Americans underestimate the importance of their country, which boasts, of course, the world’s largest economy, most innovative tech sector and strongest military. But many more assume, to an absurd degree, that America is the best at everything. Such people would be shocked to know that America is nowhere near the top of the charts in life expectancy (number 62, at under 80 years compared to over 84 for Italy), but has by far the highest crime rate of any advanced economy.

How could they know very much at all, when only around half the people have passports? (Yes, that figure is the lowest for any advanced economy.)

This may also be why many Americans do not know that people in most other wealthy countries love various “socialist” perks like guaranteed baseline healthcare, not needing to fret about losing their insurance “coverage” when they change jobs — because of a completely illogical connection between the two. Trust me: the list of American oddities goes on.

The myopia is encapsulated in the famous 1976 New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, which which renders Manhattan in rich, sprawling detail while compressing the rest of the world into a distant strip of vague, half-imagined places — an entire planet reduced to the periphery of American attention.

Notice that in the cartoon, the other countries have no buildings or people in them. But in reality, they do, and some of them actually play baseball. That is what the World Baseball Classic, a triennial affair which began in 2006, reminds us. This year’s tournament, which ended in recent days with a sin by Team Venezuela over Team USA — underscored it beautifully.

I note all this because, well, I have the bother of it (a usage best deployed, I find, with a Scottish accent, real or fake). Sometime around the age of 12 I became addicted to the Philadelphia Phillies, and I would risk screeching maternal disapproval by listening to the games late at night on a little transistor radio, with an earphone. As the dedicated AQL reader may recall, my finest moment as a high school journalist (and in general, I suppose) was sneaking into the Phillies “dugout” (this is the part of the stadium where players sit, which is their primary activity for most of the game) and managed to interview the then-superstar Pete Rose (the full and amazing story is available here).

Yup, this is me and Pete, who is, err, on the left

Phillies fans are a surly nunch, due to the unfortunate combination of high expectations and only moderate success, a little like the French (though neither side will want to hear it). We cannot abide fans of the hated New York Yankees and detested Los Angeles Dodgers, who are interlopers in any case. But in the magical year of 1980, when I interviewed Pete during the seventh inning of a real game, the Phillies went on to win their first World Series. At the time I very much still supported the term, and I like to believe I had something — perhaps modest — to do with this astonishing feat (which has only been repeated once).

So as you can see, this game makes people a little bit crazy. As such, it cannot surprise that Americans invented it (though based on a UK variant, it seems). At the same time, Japan treats baseball not as an import but as a national passion. In the Caribbean, where I have lived, and across Latin America, the sport is woven into identity, memory, and daily life. Though, to be fair, they do seem to prefer cricket and soccer, respectively. And leagues have sprouted up everywhere.

Given all this, the WBC now draws decent global audiences, in over 100 territories, even in Europe and the Middle East, from where I write. The 2026 edition deepened the sense that this event is becoming the sport’s real international summit. Watching the Classic, one starts to suspect that this, not the October pageant, is baseball’s true “World Series.” Not because the quality is better than MLB’s postseason — it isn’t, consistently —but because the premise is honest. The teams actually represent countries. Sure, they’re often composed of Americans connected to those countries, but the Major Leaguers ensure the quality is not bad – and I can attest that the countries in question care).

It’s also somehow heartening in the way the Classic scrambles the boundaries of identity. American-born players routinely join teams with which they have a family or ancestral connection – and my own beloved Phillies were prominent, beyond Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber on Team USA. Team Israel in 2026 included the Jewish outfielder Harrison Bader (he was let go by the team in the offseason, yet we cannot let go of him) and catcher Garrett Stubbs. They gave the poor Israelis something to root for that’s not connected to regional wars.

Team Italy featured Aaron Nola and prospect Dante Nori. Other Phillies dispersed across the bracket as well: pitchers Cristopher Sanchez with the Dominican Republic, Taijuan Walker with Mexico, and Jesus Luzardo as a Venezuela reserve, and utility man Edmundo Sosa with Panama,. It says something cool and modern about citizenship and heritage.

Harper, quiet for stretches, nearly wrote the American ending himself with a two-run “homer” (hitting the ball in “fair” territory beyond the end of the field) in the eighth “inning” (think of it as a bracket, each teams turn to be on offense) ) of the final to put the US ahead. But Venezuela answered in the ninth (which is generally the last inning) and won 3-2 to claim its first WBC title. That felt right in its way: the tournament did what international competition is supposed to do. It widened the circle in a way that might open a few American eyes.

So yeah, we love our MLB teams – but anyone who has experienced the Champions League versus the World Cup, in soccer, knows that when the emotion is national, the stakes feel larger than payrolls, cities, or cable markets. It’s different, and each has its place, but the national teams, even though they’re rarely quite as cohesive, can seem more real. Ironic, of course, in the case of Americans playing for Italy.

Either way, the tournament is sanctioned as baseball’s official national-team world championship, and that’s something.

So the old “World Series” label now feels not only inaccurate but oddly revealing. It reflects a habit of mind America would do well to outgrow: the assumption that domestic champions are, by definition, the world’s champions; that rest of the globe is basically optional. In baseball, as in politics, there is a kind of needless national vanity that can curdle into something less charming than confidence. The World Baseball Classic offers a corrective. It asks Americans to love their sport without pretending to own the entire horizon.

So hear this! The WBC should be staged more often, promoted more seriously, and embraced by fans as a central event in the baseball calendar.

Which is nor to diss the World Series. October baseball remains magnificent, and MLB remains the game’s highest professional standard. Here’s hoping Luzardo – who actually took some heat for preferring Phillies training camp to playing for Venezuela – helps bring the title home this year! You will not be surprised to hear the team, in its last several playoff efforts, has been stinking up the joint.

It is my cross to bear. Well, one of several, perhaps.