Teen's big moment epitomizes WBC's charm

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Scoff, if you will, at the notion that the winning double Yadier Molina hit Monday night in the World Baseball Classic meant more than his home run 2 ½ years ago that thrust the St. Louis Cardinals into a World Series they eventually won.

And sneer, too, at the idea that this was the biggest night of Juan Carlos Sulbaran's young life, even bigger than what he was doing at this time last year, which was figuring out who he wanted to take to prom at American Heritage High School in Plantation, Fla.

Just know this: To the players involved – the ones wearing their country's names on their uniforms – the WBC matters, everything that's wrong about the tournament be damned. And to see what transpired in Puerto Rico's thrilling 3-1 victory against an inspired Netherlands team was to see baseball at its purest – and perhaps finest.

Because when the 19-year-old Sulbaran came on in the sixth inning against future Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez and struck him out on three pitches, he leapt off the mound like a grasshopper, looking like he'd never land. And when he induced a bases-loaded ground out on a 3-2 pitch the following inning against Carlos Beltran, the $119 million man, Sulbaran found a mob of teammates wondering how he'd summoned such fortitude having never thrown a single pitch as a professional. And when in the next inning Molina laced a shot down the left-field line to score two runs and put Puerto Rico ahead 2-1, he pointed to the sky, and then to the stands at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, where the nearly 20,000 that packed the place pointed right back with their voices and hands, and their gratitude.

"It's one of the greatest moments of my life," Molina said. "The double that I hit tonight is going to be in my heart all my life."

Here's the thing about the WBC: It may never catch on in the United States. It may resonate with all the impact of a pebble hitting a pond. And that would be a shame, because though the players are in spring-training shape and make spring-training mistakes, the passion they exude brings an entirely different air, one that negates any aesthetic issues and underscores how much the game matters.

In no other situation would a kid like Sulbaran be thrown into a meaningful baseball game against superior players almost twice his age and told to lock them down not just for himself, his career and his teammates but his country. He was born in Curacao, moved with his mom and sister to Davie, Fla., at 16 years old and wanted to pitch at the University of Florida until Cincinnati drafted him last year in the 30th round and signed him for $500,000.

Sulbaran pitched against Cuba in the Beijing Olympics. This, he said, was more important. The Netherlands already had upset the mighty Dominican Republic in the opening game of this region, and to beat Puerto Rico would evermore validate this team in Curacao and Aruba, both territories of the Netherlands, where the game is known as "honkbal" and lags far behind soccer in popularity.

When Sulbaran entered with two out in the sixth, Beltran stood on third base and the Netherlands held a 1-0 lead. Rodriguez had hit two home runs in Puerto Rico's first game. Sulbaran didn't care. Fastball. Slurve. Slurve. And one of the best catchers in history swung through a strike three from a kid whose best game prior to Monday came against Coral Springs High last February.

"Everyone was screaming loud," Sulbaran said, "and I got pumped, and I just wanted to strike him out to let them know the louder they got, the better I pitched."

Trouble found him the next inning. Mike Aviles doubled. Alex Cora took a breaking ball off the foot. Jesus Feliciano slapped an infield single. Sulbaran battled for 10 pitches before Ramon Vazquez popped out. And then came Beltran, who Sulbaran said he recently traded for in a baseball video game.

"When you're off the field, they're the heroes, the major league players, everyone you want to look up to," he said. "When you play against them, to me, they're no one. They're just a baseball player, and you have to compete against them."

He competed and won. And no matter what happens the rest of his life – whether Sulbaran makes the major leagues, as he should, health permitting, or he flames out – he will always look back at the day he got four outs against some of the best players in the world and remember that it happened in the WBC, which might not have been the World Series but sure felt like it.

What, sounds like hyperbole?

"To play before your family, before your own people, there are very different emotions than playing a World Series before almost 50,000 people," Molina said. "It is really exciting, but here in front of your own people, your family. I believe this is my World Series, and I enjoy it more here."

The Puerto Rican players poured out of the dugout and formed an impromptu mosh pit on the field following their victory. Remember, this came against the Netherlands, a team with exactly one player who was in the major leagues last season, Yurendell de Caster, and he got two at-bats.

It's just that … they couldn't help it. Puerto Rico was moving on to Miami for the tournament's second round, while the Netherlands will play a do-or-die game Tuesday against the Dominican team it embarrassed Saturday.

And embarrassed is the right phraseology. The WBC stirs such emotions. Pride and shame, elation and despondence, the extremes with nothing in between.

So scoff and sneer and acknowledge everything that's wrong with the WBC. Just promise to do one more thing.

Watch.