Last week, the World Baseball Classic (WBC) came to an end. For those who may not know, the World Baseball Classic is a baseball league in which nations/countries come together to compete in a tournament similar to that of the World Cup for soccer.

After a 2-year long pandemic-related hiatus, the league has made its recent return and end. Displaying athletic talent around the world, the World Baseball Classic is renowned for its entertaining and thrilling games of baseball as well as its involvement with other nations.

The games are streamed on FOX, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, Tubi, and Fox Deportes. While typically 16 teams/nations participate, this year’s tournament consisted of 20 teams. The team that wins the tournament is deemed the World Champion.

The countries that participated this year consisted of The United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, Australia, Cuba, Colombia, Great Britain, South Korea, Italy, The Netherlands, and much more. The games took place all around the world, such as The Marlins Stadium in Miami and, Chinese Taipei’s Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium.

This year was a World Baseball Classic like none saw before. The showdown between players such as Shohei Otani and Mike Trout and the signing of players to the MLB brought the attention of baseball fans all over the world.

Nicaragua Pitcher, Duque Hebbert, after striking out three players received a contract to play with the Detroit Tigers in the MLB after his performance in the ninth inning in a match against the Dominican Republic. Though Nicaragua lost 6-1 to the Dominican Republic, one of the Nicaraguan players was able to come out of the game a winner.

Not only that but many other exciting moments occurred during the WBC too. For instance, Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, though typically teammates on the Angels, were faced against each other in the final of the World Baseball Classic.

Once colleagues, for the time being, they became adversaries of one another that represented their countries to win. At the height of their faceoff, Shohei Ohtani came out on top and struck out Mike Trout. The showdown between the two has been regarded as one of the most exciting moments in the World Baseball Classic.

Another very notable moment of the WBC could be the walk-off in Mexico by Japan during a very tense and alternating game. A very back-and-forth game between Mexico and Japan resulted in a walk-off on Munetaka Murakami’s double which would, in turn, send Japan to the final against The United States.

While the WBC has come to an end, moments as such will be remembered in the 2023 Fifth World Baseball Classic and will be regarded as one of the most exciting of them all. In addition, the World Baseball Classic will make its return in the year 2026.

If the World Baseball Classic piqued an interest in baseball, then watch the MLB starting on March 30th and extending until October 2023.