Every other team in the WBC has demonstrated a love of country, baseball, their fans, their teammates, and a love of joy itself and Mark De Rosa and the U.S. team have offered nothing but gross pro-military horseshit. They're just the worst and I hope the D.R. hangs a dozen runs on 'em.
![The United States World Baseball Classic team may have made it to the finals, but man oh man does it have historically bad vibes. It's made them really difficult for me to root for. It's mostly about attitude.
Before the tournament began we had Paul Skenes utterly failing to read the international room by saying that “We’re America. We’ve got to assert our dominance over everybody else.” We've had Cal Raleigh's immature standoffishness, which he repeated once again on Friday night, this time refusing to return an offered fist-bump from his Mariners teammate Josh Naylor during the game against Canada. A bunch of the players are doing military cosplay. While every other team is demonstrating what a joy it is to play baseball, Mark De Rosa is saying Team USA is doing it for the troops, as if a baseball game has any bearing on literally anything important. It's just childish shit all the way down.
In that vein, on Friday, prior to the game with Canada, Mark De Rose invited former Navy SEAL Robert J. O'Neill in to the clubhouse to give a pep talk to the team: [PHOTO OF a guy in an olive drab t-shirt, jeans and baseball cap talking to Team USA in the clubhouse]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vevk6lgrt6o4wncrbp7joij3/bafkreidtl7xxmgrd5u55vaimoiqa54vozfh556lnt7m32egathm73iknjy)
