Why Team USA — not Cal Raleigh — is at fault for WBC handshake mishap | Commentary
SEATTLE – Cal Raleigh: villain.
You buying it? Because I’m not.
The American catcher has probably been the most-mentioned name in baseball over the past few days, and not for reasons he wants. It’s because he refused to shake the hand of Mariners teammate Randy Arozarena when Randy offered said hand to Raleigh at the plate in a World Baseball Classic game between Mexico and the United States a few days back.
The public sentiment seemed to favor Arozarena, who looked like the victim of a snub by an All-Star taking the game too seriously. And though the optics were rough for Raleigh, I’m not sure the fault lies with him. From the sound of things, it might lie more with Team USA.
I’ll admit I was one of the Cal critics when I first saw the exchange between him and Arozarena. It had the same cringe factor of Australian catcher Robbie Perkins declining a handshake from Czechian leadoff man Milan Prokop earlier in the tournament.
But then I heard Times Mariners writer Ryan Divish, one of the sport’s most respected beat reporters, discuss the situation with podcast host Jason Puckett earlier in the week.
Divish said from everything he’d heard, Arozarena knew not to go for the handshake – that Team USA had made it clear that they were putting “country ahead of teammates and friendships.” Seems kind of silly to me, but if true, what do you do if you’re in Raleigh’s situation?
By not shaking Arozarena’s hand, he became the temporary “bad guy” in the headlines. It seemed the WBC pushed back offering a montage on X of players shaking hands and hugging and helping each other up – a sportsmanship sampler platter accompanied by the line “This is what it’s all about!”
But if Cal did shake his hand, he may very well have defied a behind-closed-doors agreement between he and his countrymen. Certainly not a fun choice, but if those were indeed the circumstances, Raleigh probably made the right one.
Having said that, such an agreement seems overboard when we’re talking about people swinging wooden sticks at speeding spheres. Sports can be a source of tremendous pride for cities or countries – and one event can shape an athlete’s life and legacy. But they’re still games.
The public backlash toward Raleigh underscored this. You can put your all into trying to accomplish something that posterity will celebrate for generations to come. But have some perspective.
It was unclear how much tension there was between Arozarena and Raleigh after the shake that never was. Randy responded with a profanity-laced tirade in Spanish about how Cal can “(expletive) off,” but there is speculation he was just ribbing his teammate. He released a statement Saturday saying that “The WBC is behind us now, and I don’t want anything to take away from the Mariners. I’m focused on the season and helping this team compete for a World Series.”
Raleigh, meanwhile, said “There’s no beef. I love Randy. When we’re back in Seattle, he’s my brother, he’s family. We’re all in it together, just like I’m here right now with Team USA. It is what it is. I got no hard feelings toward him.”
Friday, Mariners first baseman Josh Naylor tried to bump Raleigh’s fist at the plate while representing Canada. Like Arozarena, he was rebuffed. But Naylor said afterward that he was essentially trolling.
“We all were joking, just trying to make light of the situation,” Naylor said. “I texted him before that I was going to do it and he said, ‘please don’t.’ ”
This is good news. This is Naylor saying “I know this isn’t a big deal despite what some people might be making of it.”
The last thing Raleigh is seen as by teammates is a big-timer. His 60 -home -run season last year was marked as much by humility as it was heroics, and I suspect there will be zero tension between him and anybody else on the roster once the Mariners season begins.
Until then, he and Team USA are trying to capture a WBC championship, and you better believe this means a lot to them. MLB banners are what history remembers, but international competition may be every bit as intense. Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez – a Dominican – didn’t sound like he was kidding when he said he’d take a WBC title over a World Series earlier in the week.
But win or lose, it wouldn’t hurt the Americans to lighten up just a bit. Sports and sportsmanship should go hand-in-hand. In some cases, literally.