{"id":797051,"date":"2026-03-06T21:53:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/797051\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T21:53:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:53:21","slug":"how-an-invite-to-team-usa-became-an-offer-american-players-cant-refuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/797051\/","title":{"rendered":"How an invite to Team USA became an offer American players can\u2019t refuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of USA vs. Brazil<\/a> in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.<\/a><\/p>\n

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 What could be better than a day at Disney World? A day at Disney World that ends with an invitation to baseball Fantasyland.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how it was for Byron Buxton, anyway. Buxton was home in Georgia this off-season, winding down by the fireplace on his patio after a family visit to the Happiest Place On Earth. Then he took a call from Mark DeRosa \u2014 and just like that, he got even happier.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t DeRosa, the MLB Network analyst, asking for an interview. It was DeRosa, the Team USA manager for the World Baseball Classic, asking for a center fielder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018No way this is Mark DeRosa,\u2019\u201d Buxton said on Wednesday, after the United States thrashed the Colorado Rockies, 14-4, in an exhibition at Salt River Fields. \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Buck, what\u2019s up? You in?\u2019 And I was just like, \u2018Heck yeah!\u2019 There was no hesitation. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve been wanting to do for a while now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buxton missed a chance to play for Team USA at the 2015 Pan Am Games because the Minnesota Twins promoted him to the majors. He wasn\u2019t asked for the WBC in 2017, when the U.S. won, or in 2023, when Japan wrested away the title. Those tournaments have helped establish the WBC, for American players, as a can\u2019t-miss event.<\/p>\n

Everybody loves a winner, and it took a while for Team USA to be one. In the first three versions \u2014 in 2006, 2009 and 2013 \u2014 the U.S. lost twice in the quarterfinals and once in the semis. The 2017 team set out to change the results and the perception.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, my first year, there were definitely a lot of players, some of the best players, that didn\u2019t want to play,\u201d said New York Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who returns for his third WBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose of us that were there kind of wanted to prove how great this team could be. We were able to win, and then I think more guys, last time, wanted to do it. The ending there against Japan, even though we came up short, (showed) just how much fun everyone was having, and how great that event is, a lot more media coverage on TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this time around, definitely, almost everyone wants to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the old attitudes, from before the 2017 victory, now sound as dated as dial-up Internet.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, to USA Today, in 2006: \u201cI\u2019m worried for baseball and worried for the whole thing. Somebody\u2019s going to get hurt and hurt some team. Baseball didn\u2019t need this. It\u2019s disrupting spring training.\u201d<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s then-New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard, in 2017, when asked why he had no regrets about skipping the tournament: \u201cBecause I\u2019m a Met. Ain\u2019t nobody made it to the Hall of Fame or the World Series playing in the WBC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, all the cool kids want to go. Pitcher Griffin Jax said that as soon as he heard about the upcoming tournament, he started angling for an invite, calling Paul Skenes, who was helping to recruit some of the top American pitchers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I started hearing rumblings of this team being put together last summer, I called my agent, I said, \u2018Look, I don\u2019t really know what the process is for this team, how you get recruited, but I need you to start knocking on the door and let them know that I want to do this,\u2019\u201d Jax said. \u201cI also called Skenes and said, \u2018Hey man, I saw you\u2019re one of the first names, tell DeRosa, I\u2019m f\u2014ing in\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At minimum, the WBC breaks up the spring training monotony; exotic locales like Port Charlotte, Fla., and Surprise, Ariz., will still be there when the players return. But it\u2019s really so much more.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting the chance to be surrounded by the greatness we have in this room \u2014 MVPs, Cy Young winners, World Series champs, All-Stars, it goes on and on,\u201d Team USA captain Aaron Judge said, explaining his recruiting pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a cool experience. You\u2019ll get a chance to play for your country and then also learn a thing or two (about) how guys tick. And, hopefully, you can add something to your game and help you out during the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge and DeRosa haven\u2019t had to do much convincing. Those who play in the WBC typically return to their teams as true believers.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery guy, from Mookie (Betts) and Will Smith and even Barnsie (Austin Barnes) when he played for Mexico, they all told me: \u2018It\u2019s something you have to do,\u2019\u201d said pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who could not secure insurance to play in 2023, which is not a problem now that he\u2019s retired.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I think just the environment that\u2019s created with it now, you see some of these teams, I mean, they\u2019re pretty stacked with the D.R. and Japan. It\u2019s going to be a playoff environment. It\u2019s kind of what everybody has told me, and (our) group certainly is motivated to win, which is really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the field, Goldschmidt has made first base his pulpit for preaching the good word. Whatever a player\u2019s background, experiencing the WBC is now essential to the baseball brotherhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter \u201917, we went back and I was just telling everyone on my team, everyone that got to first base, I would say: \u2018Listen, you need to play for your country,\u2019\u201d Goldschmidt said. \u201cAnd of course the U.S. guys: \u2018You need to go play for Team USA,\u2019 because it was great, it was so much fun, the competition was great. You\u2019re basically playing an All-Star Game every night and it definitely prepares you for the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think all those things really helped, and same thing in \u201923 \u2014 I just felt the momentum growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Byron Buxton, Kyle Schwarber, Roman Anthony and Aaron Judge working out ahead of Team USA\u2019s Friday WBC opener. (Chris Coduto \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The breathless ending to the last WBC, when Shohei Ohtani fanned then-Angels teammate Mike Trout for the final out in Miami, raised the profile of the event and the expectations for the silver medalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d said the Philadelphia Phillies\u2019 Kyle Schwarber, who played for the U.S. then and will take the field Friday night when Team USA plays its WBC opener against Brazil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew team, new faces, new everything, right? But still the same three letters across our chest where we didn\u2019t get the job done three years ago and we want to fix that. So everyone\u2019s got the right mindset here. Everyone\u2019s looking forward to getting in this tournament and making a deep run and making it all the way to the end and wearing the gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team has bonded over dinners, flights, text chains and dugout conversations. The effort is intentional, Goldschmidt said, because in smaller countries, especially those with winter leagues, WBC teammates often know each other better.<\/p>\n

Yet to varying degrees, all of the U.S. players carry the burden of leadership with their MLB teams \u2014 or, at least, the responsibility that comes from knowing that people pay attention to you.<\/p>\n

That is part of a shared, likely unspoken connection on the bench and in the clubhouse. When you\u2019ve made it to Team USA, you\u2019ve made it. You are equals in red, white and blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just no egos, man, like everybody\u2019s in there being themselves, picking each other up, no matter what it is,\u201d Buxton said. \u201cObviously, it\u2019s the best of the best, and to be able to immediately come back in the clubhouse or the dugout and have information this quick\u201d \u2014 Buxton snapped his fingers \u2014 \u201cEverybody can\u2019t get that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(On) every team, it\u2019s hard to get information quick, but we have such good eyes in here \u2014 Judge and (Bryce) Harper and Schwarber and Bobby Witt, and I know I\u2019m missing some, but every guy in that clubhouse is phenomenal. We all watch each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

More and more, they know they are watching the best.<\/p>\n

\u2014With contributions from The Athletic\u2018s Eno Sarris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of USA vs. Brazil in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,6060,99101],"class_list":["post-797051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-mlb","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116184457494286148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}