rewrite this title Team USA stands in Dominican Republic’s path to moving closer to WBC crown

MIAMI — Is anyone actually surprised that Julio Rodriguez would rather win a World Baseball Classic than a World Series?

The surprise would be if Rodriguez didn’t feel that way.

Last season, the Dominican outfielder reached the American League Championship Series with the Mariners. He knows how October magic can transform a city. He’s seen how a postseason run can unite people who might have nothing in common other than an affinity for their hometown team.

Still, this is different. Here, he is representing more than a uniform. 

“Winning a World Baseball Classic would be top of the list,” Rodriguez said on “Fair Territory” last week. “This is for my country. This is for my town. This is for my people, my neighborhood, my everybody in the Dominican Republic.”

Baseball players are products of place. How they play reflects where they were raised. So when foreign players step on the field, they often feel as if they’re representing the cultures that shaped them. The WBC offers them a chance to do so more explicitly: wearing uniforms with their countries’ names across their chests and sharing locker rooms with teammates who share their languages and learned the game in similar ways.

The novelty isn’t as striking for American players. Nothing makes a person as aware of their culture as being in an alien environment, and most of them have never experienced that to a significant degree. The culture of Major League Baseball is the culture of American baseball. Everything from how to receive instruction to how to deal with failure is viewed through an American lens. 

Foreign players must strike a balance between figuring out how to blend into this world while retaining the qualities that make them special. The WBC temporarily frees them from this tension. 

For the Dominican Republic, these dynamics have made its team the greatest show of the tournament. Entering their semifinal against Team USA on Sunday, the Dominicans have scored 51 runs in five games.

In the quarterfinals, the Dominicans mercy-ruled South Korea after extending their lead to 10-0 in the seventh inning. The performance prompted Korean manager Ji-Hyun Ryu to call the D.R. “the world’s best.”

One moment, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was punching the air after scoring a run. In the next, Fernando Tatis Jr. was punctuating a run-scoring single by chopping imaginary sugar cane.

“It starts with who we are,” Tatis said. “It starts with our culture. Just what we grow (up) with, what we’ve seen, how we feel, how we dance. It’s all credit to the Dominican Republic and who we are as (people).”

Six Dominican hitters already have multiple home runs: Guerrero, Tatis, Juan Soto, Junior Caminero, Oneil Cruz and Austin Wells.

The team’s .314 batting average and 1.090 OPS are the best in the entire competition. The players look as if they’re in their element, with no male Karens on the team to lecture them about proper decorum.

“I think that’s everything, having fun out there,” Soto said. “Definitely we respect the game, too, but we have to have fun. I think that’s when the best of you comes out, when you have fun out there, when you don’t worry about anything else.”

Paul Skenes is assigned to temper the D.R.’s exuberance in the semifinals; he is lined up to start for Team USA. Skenes will have to deal with more than just a stacked lineup. He will also have to tame what is expected to be a pro-Dominican crowd that has rocked loanDepot Park. 

Drums and whistles have provided soundtracks for the D.R.’s games, with the crowd roaring every time one of its heroes drives a ball into the outfield.

In the typical player-fan relationship, the fans see parts of themselves in the players. In this case, the players also see themselves in the fans.

“I think when we wear this uniform, we’re not just playing for ourselves but for an entire country,” Manny Machado said in Spanish. “They support us better than ever. They support us now. They give us strength when we’re in the stadium. I think we all feel that. At the end of the day, not just me but the entire team, I think we’re playing for all of them.”

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