World Baseball Classic grows in popularity, with roots firmly planted in Worcester

WORCESTER — Baseball has the longest history of any sport that we have come to think of as our four majors, so it comes full circle more than any other.

In this case, the circle closes at Polar Park.

The World Baseball Classic, revived successfully this spring and will feature a final of USA taking on Japan on Tuesday, was born of a meeting in San Diego more than 20 years ago — right around 2000 or 2001 — when Worcester Red Sox principal owner Larry Lucchino told his management team in San Diego that he wanted to establish a blueprint for what eventually became the World Baseball Classic.

“I remember meeting around a table talking about a World Baseball Cup — what would become the World Baseball Classic,” WooSox president Dr. Charles Steinberg recalled.

“We said it first,” Lucchino added. “We talked to Major League Baseball and said that we wanted a World Baseball Cup. They said we couldn’t use “cup” — they got hung up on the name — but we were the ones who brought the idea to them.

“We were the first book of the international bible.”

Lucchino’s vision, however, was the 21st century one, the most recognized and successful one. Its ancestor was a child of Worcester, though.

In December 1879, Lancaster native Frank Bancroft made the professional game’s first excursion outside of the United States and Canada by taking his ’79 Worcesters on a trip to Cuba.

That team was Triple-A level, then joined the National League in 1880. It was called the Hop Bitters but was composed of Worcester players such as George Wood, Alonzo Knight, Charlie Bennett, Art Whitney, Chub Sullivan, Doc Bushong, Arthur Irwin and Tricky Nichols.

The team left New Orleans for Cuba on Dec. 13 and played its first game against a team from that island in front of 3,000 fans. The trip lasted just two games, though. Bancroft thought it unethical to charge admission. The Cuban government wanted a piece of the action.

The twain never met, and the team was back home before the month was over.

The World Baseball Classic has that trip beaten, but Cuba has gone on to become a major player on the international baseball scene.

Lucchino’s Padres were the first major league team to venture outside the United States and Canada, and that invention was a product of necessity. When he arrived in San Diego in 1995 as president and CEO of the Padres, Lucchino was asked if that area had enough people to support big league baseball.

“It’s not a big enough market,” he responded. “It’s just 2½ million people. We’ve got the desert in the east, the ocean in the west and Los Angeles in the north. But if you add Baja California in the south, that’s another 2½ million, and that’s 5 million people.”

Lucchino made the Padres a bilingual and bicultural organization. He traveled to Mexico to sell his vision, then traveled to New York City to lobby MLB to allow to happen. Lucchino’s approach was simple. He promised he would sit in headquarters until some team, somewhere, agreed to play the Padres in Mexico.

The plan worked. In 1996, San Diego took on the Mets in a regular-season game in Monterrey, the first one played south of the Rio Grande.

Since then there have been major league regular-season games played in Mexico, Japan, Great Britain and Australia. Lucchino personally has seen baseball games in eight countries — the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Cuba, Great Britain and China.

That list could be extended, Steinberg thinks.

“Imagine how many Red Sox fans would love to watch their team play in Ireland,” he said.

This year’s WBC is the fifth, following the 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2017 events. The next scheduled one is 2026. Japan has won twice. The Dominican Republic and United States once each. This year’s Classic includes 20 countries from five continents; Africa does not have a representative, nor (breaking news!) Antarctica.

The world is constantly changing, sometimes for the better. It’s the same with baseball.

Who knows? Somewhere down the road, another team composed of Worcester Triple-A players might build upon the international visions of Lucchino and Bancroft, do the 90 miles from Key West to Havana, and this time stay for more than a couple of games.

—Contact Bill Ballou at sports@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillBallouTG.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: World Baseball Classic grows, with roots planted in Worcester