The World Baseball Classic Shouldn't Exist Because Someone Hurt Their Knee

Being a sports fan means convincing yourself that you can say or do whatever you want because your fandom and love for a particle sports franchise somehow supersedes everything else in the world.

We are seeing this in real-time as Mets fans are losing their shit over a random injury in the World Baseball Classic.

On Wednesday night, Team Puerto Rico beat the Dominican Republic 5-2 to advance to the quarterfinal of the World Baseball Classic. Unfortunately, Mets closer Edwin Diaz suffered a knee injury while celebrating with his squad.

Edwin Diaz appears to have suffered an injury during Puerto Rico’s celebration pic.twitter.com/G9Md6SBrEj

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 16, 2023

Yike.

There are two ways to feel after watching that clip. You either feel terrible for the 28-year-old pitcher who went from celebrating one of the best moments of his life to immediately experiencing the worst day of his life in a span of like, 98 seconds.

Or,

You can see that same clip and immediately think about how it affects you and your favorite baseball team.

First Freddie Freeman, now Edwin Diaz.

The WBC is a meaningless exhibition series designed to: get YOU to buy another uniform, to hell with the real season, and split up teammates based on where their grandmothers got laid.

Call it off. Now. https://t.co/A5IT4rJWON

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 16, 2023

Here’s Keith Olbermann being extremely reactionary because professional athletes suffered injuries playing against the best professional athletes in the world. Again, there are two types of sports fans. People who recognize these athletes as humans and those who see them are faceless chess pieces on a board.

How can anyone call the World Baseball Classic a ‘meaningless exhibition’ when the players themselves have shown how much they care? Edwin Diaz would not have been injured if these games were meaningless.

Here are some players straight up telling us that the WBC means more to them than a World Series:

World Series or World Baseball Classic? Here’s what some of the Dominican Republic players said 🇩🇴 pic.twitter.com/PFk0oiaVRp

— La Vida Baseball (@LaVidaBaseball) March 15, 2023

Here are the ratings for these meaningless exhibition games:

Japan vs Korea reached 63 million viewers last week.

The most watched World Series game ever was 54 million in 1980.

— Baseball Doesn’t Exist (@BaseballDoesnt) March 16, 2023

There is something specifically American to believe that what happens in Flushing, Queens is more important than what is essentially the World Cup of baseball.

Let’s also dig a little deeper into why this Edwin Diaz injury is hitting a certain segment of people the way it is. Walk with me. Let’s make fun of these geeks.

We’ve heard plenty of white baseball players complain that the Latin American-born players don’t ‘play the game the right way’ meaning they celebrate too much and aren’t robotic emotionless gentlemen wearing tuxedos and sipping martinis as they trot around the bases.

So when Edwin Diaz injures himself celebrating then all of these people who already look down upon Spanish players get their biases confirmed. This would’ve never happened if Puerto Rico won and simply jogged off the field and quietly sat in their hotel rooms after—hopefully not texting any white father’s daughters.

I reckon what frustrates me the most is seeing how all of this excitement and players showing emotions after big plays are clearly leading to massive TV ratings but the people who complain about their beloved sport dying are the same people who are shaking their heads and wagging their fingers at these players actually enjoying themselves.

You can be a fan of a team without treating the players on the team like non-playable characters who exist on this planet for the sole purpose of entertaining you.

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