{"id":630252,"date":"2026-03-18T16:21:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/630252\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:21:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:21:18","slug":"venezuelas-world-baseball-classic-win-had-yankees-oswaldo-cabrera-in-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/630252\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela\u2019s World Baseball Classic win had Yankees\u2019 Oswaldo Cabrera in tears"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA \u2014 As Venezuela\u2019s World Baseball Classic team celebrated its tournament championship<\/a> with a win over the United States in Miami, Fla. on Tuesday night, Oswaldo Cabrera hosted a watch party for his family at his Tampa residence on the other side of the state.<\/p>\n

The Yankees\u2019 utilityman, born in the Venezuelan city of Guarenas, said his mom was responsible for filming the gathering, especially the Cabreras\u2019 reaction to the final out of a 3-2 win for his homeland. However, she botched the job, repeatedly obscuring her camera lens with her finger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no video,\u201d the bubbly Cabrera said Wednesday morning, eliciting lots of laughs. \u201cJust audio.\u201d<\/p>\n

That audio recorded Cabrera and his family crying tears of joy. That was also a common reaction among the Venezuelan team that won the WBC, a group that Cabrera said was \u201cunderestimated\u201d because it didn\u2019t have as much star power as some other rosters in the tournament, including that of Team USA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means a lot for everybody, but especially for a country that is having tough moments,\u201d Cabrera said, referring to his nation\u2019s ongoing political and economic unrest, which has coincided with military intervention from the United States. \u201cFor all the country, everybody\u2019s just focusing on one thing for at least one night, and that means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabrera, beaming with pride, went on to explain that Venezuelan\u2019s WBC championship \u201cmeans everything\u201d back home because his country doesn\u2019t excel at many other sports. The U.S., he reasoned, also regularly contends for international championships in basketball, hockey and soccer, so winning the WBC may not have meant as much to Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have this championship and sport for Venezuela is a big thing in Venezuela,\u201d Cabrera continued. \u201cSo for us, it means way too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabrera added that he texted former Yankees teammate Gleyber Torres, who played for the Venezuelan team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for making 30 million Venezuelan people proud,\u201d Cabrera told him.<\/p>\n

As for current teammates, Cabrera said it was \u201cso weird\u201d rooting against Aaron Judge, who captained Team USA\u2019s silver medal squad. He felt a similar way about rooting against the U.S, as Cabrera appreciates the opportunities he\u2019s been afforded stateside.<\/p>\n

Those mixed feelings aside, Cabrera said he would love to represent Venezuela in future World Baseball Classics or even the 2028 Olympics, should major league players get the chance to participate in the latter. That wasn\u2019t realistic this time around, as Cabrera had to go about his business slowly this spring after suffering a season-ending ankle fracture last May.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking to participate in everything that I can for Venezuela,\u201d Cabrera said. \u201cWhen I was a kid, I always represented Venezuela, and I think that\u2019s one of the most beautiful things that you can do for your country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 As Venezuela\u2019s World Baseball Classic team celebrated its tournament championship with a win over the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,5,4,3226,1364,8814,4820,142],"class_list":["post-630252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-athletics","tag-oswaldo-cabrera","tag-venezuela","tag-world-baseball-classic","tag-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116251098223786912","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}