It was a weird World Baseball Classic for Team USA, but Ken Rosenthal doesn’t have any time for anyone who thinks that they did not care about winning the tournament.
Manager Mark DeRosa fell under the microscope for not understanding the basic rules of the tournament and almost costing the USA a chance of even playing for the title in the knockout round. And other coaches like Andy Pettitte admitted that they felt unprepared during the tournament.
There was also a growing narrative that Team USA just didn’t care as much as the nations from around the globe playing in the tournament. Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal left the team and didn’t pitch in the knockout round to prepare for Opening Day with the Detroit Tigers. And the passion that was clearly expressed by other countries wasn’t matched in the Team USA dugout.
The USA lost their second consecutive World Baseball Classic final by a 3-2 score, this time to Venezuela, who won their first WBC. In spite of being the home of baseball, the US has only one WBC victory in 2017 out of six tournaments to be held to this point.
But on Foul Territory, Ken Rosenthal agreed with A.J. Pierzynski that it’s not for a lack of effort or passion from the American side. He slammed those narratives as “ridiculous.”
“It’s a ridiculous narrative.”@Ken_Rosenthal says the thought that Team USA didn’t care as much about winning the World Baseball Classic is “absurd.” pic.twitter.com/iCmFBvpjsj
— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) March 18, 2026
“It’s a ridiculous narrative,” Rosenthal said. And it’s so funny to me A.J., 10-15 years ago, when we were still in the period where the unwritten rules ruled, right? The reaction of players from Venezuela, Dominican Republic, all the guys who would act like they did, some Americans too, that was looked down upon. Now if you don’t act like that it’s looked down upon. The idea that these guys didn’t care and weren’t trying to win as hard as they could, it’s absurd. They care a lot. And they bonded and they relished being part of this team. They relished being with each other. They relished representing their country.”
“And if you want to look at this question from a different perspective, ok, because the US beat the Dominican Republic, does that mean the US cares more than the Dominican Republic? No. Did Venezuela win last night because they cared more than the US? No. It was a baseball game. People express themselves differently. One of the beauties of this tournament, and in fact Bryce spoke to this last night, is that we get to celebrate the diversity of baseball cultures. We get to see and experience all the different cultures in this game, this beautiful game that is played around the world,” Rosenthal added.
Ken Rosenthal has had to deal with some narratives that emerged during the tournament personally as colleagues in the sports media stood up for him against criticism from Pardon My Take co-host Dan Katz.
Perhaps some of the weird vibes come from how Team USA communicated their passion for the tournament. While dugouts like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic were filled with jubilation, the upstart Italian team celebrated with espressos in their dugout. Compare that to the USA who played up a military-inspired angle for a baseball tournament both in the media and in the clubhouse in the midst of the country being involved in incredibly divisive campaigns across the globe and maybe it’s easy to see why there was a disconnect. At least there were no FBI directors in the locker room this time, though.
And there was also the fact that several international players talked about winning the WBC for their country as being on par or surpassing winning a World Series. Team USA captain Aaron Judge did too, but that was shot down by former Yankee captain Derek Jeter, showing that it was far from a universal feeling. Nevertheless, Ken Rosenthal knows that the Team USA players wanted to bring home the trophy.
“To say that the US players didn’t care is one of the bigger fallacies that I’ve ever heard, it’s absurd,” he declared.
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