That’s a ton of quotation marks, isn’t it? I’ll be sure to explain all of them in just a moment. But first … (drum roll) … the 2023 World Baseball Classic has begun! It’s kinda like the World Cup, but for baseball instead of soccer. Like soccer’s grand quadrennial event, the WBC is played every four years (although this year’s edition was a postponement from 2021 due to COVID). And it has the national teams of 20 nations from five continents competing for world bragging rights. It doesn’t have the prestige of the World Cup, but it has a huge following outside the United States, and even within the U.S., interest is growing fast. The first rounds of games will take place in stadia around the world over the next couple of weeks, all leading to the final games in Miami.