SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — After Luis Arraez, Jose Butto and Venezuela prevailed over Logan Webb and Team USA, the three players had about six hours together in the air to rekindle their relationship as Giants teammates, instead of international rivals.
The Giants’ three participants in the World Baseball Classic finale shared a charter flight with their families that arrived back in Arizona from Miami late Wednesday evening.
Barely 24 hours later, Webb took the mound at Salt River Fields for his final tuneup before his Opening Day start. But time clearly hadn’t healed this wound yet.
“There was some ragging going on today,” Webb said. “I didn’t particularly like it, to be honest.”
While Arraez was downright giddy, showing off a bottle of 2015 Dom Perignon he received as a championship gift, Webb was still sore over the loss — and Team USA’s portrayal.
“I feel like there was a narrative that we didn’t care. That’s complete bulls—. We probably cared the most out of every team, to be honest,” Webb said. “We do things in different ways than some of the other teams. But we cared a lot. It was like a brotherhood for two weeks. It was really fun. We’re all pretty upset that we didn’t win. We feel like we should’ve.”
The Americans’ businesslike approach stood in contrast to the exuberance from the Venezuelan side. Arraez, the captain for the title game, told his teammates to play like they were kids.
“That’s why we won. We’re just having fun,” Arraez said. “You guys saw those videos of us dancing, just play(ing) like a kid, that’s what I said, that’s why we won the gold.”
Cubs reliever Daniel Palencia could be seen crying before recording the last out, and the same emotions overcame Arraez, who agreed that the WBC win was more meaningful than a World Series. He saw videos of fans crying tears of joy back in Venezuela and got emotional again.
“I opened my phone and I started crying again,” Arraez said. “Because that’s so big for me, my family and my country. … They pass a lot of bad things there in Venezuela. They just need to cry, but in a good way. That’s why we bring a championship to them.”
For the Venezuelan team, the victory came on the same soil of the country that invaded them less than two months earlier. A thousand or so miles north of Miami, captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro sat in a prison cell in New York while the country celebrated its first WBC win.
Arraez declined to get into the political circumstances surrounding the matchup with Team USA, but he told the California Post that the Venezuelan team did see President Donald Trump’s post on social media before the championship game. Congratulating them on their baseball success, Trump suggested Venezuela could be adopted as the 51st state.
“We wanted to show that we, as Venezuelans, are capable of anything,” Arraez said.
No need to tell Webb, who came away with a healthy respect for the passion of Venezuelan fans. The environment in Miami topped the Giants’ NLDS series against the Dodgers, he said.
Webb’s voice was still hoarse two days after the championship game.
“There were points where there was just a piercing sound in your ear,” he said. “The Venezuelan crowd was yelling the entire game. It’s just loud. It’s different. I don’t know if we’ll ever repeat that in Major League Baseball.”
There was one other narrative Webb wanted to clear up before he could turn his focus to the regular season. He didn’t mean any disrespect by removing his silver medal.
Webb admitted he was upset by the loss, but the action didn’t mean anything.
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“We were going into the clubhouse. It’s not like we were standing out there with the medal on. Do I have to wear it all the way to my locker? I think that’s blown out of proportion to be honest,” Webb said. “Yeah, I was pissed off. But if we were sitting out there and I did that, it’d be a different story. But we were going into the locker room.”
Before leaving the field, Webb took the first step in turning the page. He sought out Arraez and Butto and said congratulations. And he passed along another message.
“He said congratulations Luis,” Arraez recalled. “Let’s go to Arizona and make San Francisco happy.”
