Qualifier Was About More Than WBC Berth

Jasrado Chisholm (Photo by Tomasso de Rosa)

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—Four teams gathered at MCU Park in Brooklyn this past week, home of the Mets’ short-season affiliate Cyclones, each vying for the final spot in next year’s World Baseball Classic. Israel, winner of the tournament’s fourth and final qualifier, will head to Seoul in March to compete against Taiwan, Korea and the Netherlands.

For these diverse clubs, the time spent in New York was about much more than just a berth in the 2017 WBC.

While advancing to South Korea was certainly one goal, advancing the sport in their respective nations is even more important in the long-term. Each team that came to Coney Island to battle it out finds their countries at very different stages of the growth process at this point.

Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, second-time manager of a Brazil squad that surprised many by winning the Panama City Qualifier in 2012, has been involved in Major League Baseball’s International Elite Camp in the South American country for several years. The 12-time All-Star witnessed firsthand what exposure from this tournament can do to grow the sport.

“I think it’s a fantastic thing for the game of baseball. The reason why I think it’s fantastic is just because of the passion,” said the 1995 National League MVP. “Over the last seven years that I’ve had a chance to work with these guys and travel back and forth I’ve seen an increase in numbers, an increase in the quality of athletes that are participating in baseball, and an increase in the baseball IQ of those guys that are coming out so baseball’s growing and baseball’s in good hands in Brazil.”

One example of this was on display in Brazil’s 1-0 loss on the qualifier’s second day. Nineteen-year-old starter Bo Takahashi, 6-4, 2.81 in 19 games (.223 opponent average) in the Diamondbacks system this year, held an experienced Israel lineup to one run on two hits and one walk over four innings while striking out five.

Signed by Arizona as an international free agent in 2013, the Brazilian-born righthander is a perfect testament to what can be done when proper facilities are built and competent coaches are made available to a nation’s youngsters.

“Bo was one of the players at our elite camp six or seven years ago. We certainly saw some potential in him. He’s continued to develop,” Larkin said. “We remember when he got drafted out of the academy we were kind of sad to see him leave us, but he’s just progressively gotten better . . . I think the future is bright not only for Bo but quite a few kids that we’ve touched.”

One country without such coaches or facilities is Pakistan, a land from which some of the best cricket stars in the world hail but where the baseball team is forced to practice on soccer grounds; often with makeshift equipment.

“There is a difference. To play baseball in this kind of atmosphere. They never played in that kind of field,” manager Syed Fakhar Ali Shah said. “In Pakistan we don’t have a baseball field. We have soccer grounds over there, so the bounce of the ball is totally different.”

A newcomer to WBC play and featuring the only roster of the foursome with zero affiliated players, Team Pakistan was shut out by a combined score of 24-0 in its two games.

More than a handful of Pakistan’s players were surprisingly adept at certain aspects of the game, however, one being the ability to hit the corners and keep hitters off balance with decent breaking balls.

“The pitching is a little different than professional ball, a little bit on the slower side, but the guy was relatively smart with how he mixed his pitches up,” Brazil’s Dante Bichette Jr., who was drafted 51st overall by the Yankees in 2011 and played with Double-A Trenton this season, said about Pakistan righthander Inayat Khan. “The starter hit his spots decently, too, so credit to him for that.”

This fact was not lost on their opponents, who recognized the athleticism of Pakistan’s players.

“There’s some tools. You can see that it’s raw but there’s some guys throwing the ball really hard, some guys that are pretty quick and there’s some guys that can hit the ball,” Great Britain manager Liam Carroll said. “So with that athleticism, given that it’s a minority sport there too, they’re in pretty good shape.”

Although Shah’s club left New York without crossing the plate, the charismatic skipper believes just being there will springboard the efforts of Pakistan Federation Baseball, founded in 1992 by his father.

“We are working for the last twenty years to promote baseball in Pakistan and this one event is equal to the twenty years,” Shah said. “It’s going to help my youth in Pakistan, especially those who are 12-17 and that’s where we can find the best players.”

Israel manager Jerry Weinstein echoed that sentiment before the four-day qualifier began, noting how this exposure would be even more impactful if his club were to advance to Seoul.

“The thing for me, especially with Israel where even though baseball’s been there a fair amount of time it’s still in its infancy in terms of facilities, in terms of participation numbers, in terms of funding,” the longtime Rockies coach said. “I think that this whole environment, the WBC and certainly the goals and the direction that they want to take on this is building baseball globally, and certainly it will have a tremendous impact on baseball in Israel especially if we can win this thing. We can increase funding and heighten people’s awareness, and even if we don’t it will help the total aspect of baseball in Israel.”

Josh Zeid, who spent this past season with the Mets’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates, was on the hill when Israel dropped the final game of the 2012 WBC Qualifier to Spain.

Taking into account that the country saw an estimated 40 percent increase in participation since that appearance four years ago, the tall righthander (1-0 with 1.35 ERA and nine strikeouts in 6.2 key innings out of Israel’s bullpen this time around) understands what’s at stake.

“I definitely know the seven or eight guys that came back from four years ago, they’ve made it pretty aware to the new players that some people came 5,000, 10,000 miles to get here to watch us play and they spent an enormous amount of money to be here and support us,” Zeid said. “When we hear that 10-year-olds in Israel know more about us than maybe we even know about ourselves, it’s bigger than the game.”

Great Britain’s shortstop Jasrado Chisholm, the Pioneer League’s No. 9 prospect who was born in the Bahamas, has seen the attitude towards baseball change in the former British colony.

“Baseball in the Bahamas has grown a lot more,” said the Diamondbacks farmhand. “Kids are just starting to love it more… They’re just starting to love it more instead of just going out there because their parents send them out there. You can just see more love in the game and that’s what you look for in a baseball player.”

Despite his age, even 15-year-old Eric Pardinho understands what an acceleration in progress could mean.

“The baseball in Brazil will grow much more than before because right now we have people that we can look up to and use as a model, as a goal for us,” said the hard-throwing Pardinho, who pitched in relief in Brazil’s win over Pakistan, through a translator. “I think baseball will grow a lot in the next few years.”

For our nation’s pastime to truly become a global game, it starts with awareness and participation from the next generation. These four days in a small minor league park along the Atlantic Ocean may have helped spark that for years to come.