Even At The World Baseball Classic, The Mariners Cannot Escape Themselves

Part of the charm of the World Baseball Classic is that it takes your favorite athletes and places them in different arrangements. It answers fantastical questions: What if all the members of the Los Angeles Dodgers played on different teams? What would it look like if you put together a line-up containing Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto, Julio Rodríguez, and Fernando Tatis Jr., on a team managed by a glassed-up Albert Pujols? Sure, why not.

If the WBC has the same vibes as taking your dolls and making them kiss, Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena are enacting the equivalent of when you take your dolls to the courthouse and have them stage a messy and public divorce. When Arozarena first stepped up to bat during the United States–Mexico game Monday night, he offered a handshake to the catcher, his Seattle Mariners teammate Cal Raleigh, who refused it and instead said something to Arozarena, who bent down to listen. It was not the first time that a catcher has declined to shake an opponent’s hand this tournament: Australian catcher Robbie Perkins previously declined to shake the hand of Czech hitter Milan Prokop. It was also not the first time Arozarena has been snubbed by a team USA catcher during the WBC, though in 2023, the snubber was not his own teammate.

Back when Will Smith declined Arozarena’s handshake, Arozarena brushed off the matter straightforwardly, saying, “He left me hanging, but I’m not going to cry. I kept going and hit two doubles.” Arozarena was less blithe about Raleigh’s snubbing, leaving an extended comment to Mexican journalist Luis Gilbert, helpfully translated in full by Twitter user Master Flip:

How do you think I should respond to Cal Raleigh? How should I put it to him?

I want to say it in four languages.

First, in Spanish: The only thing he should be thankful for is having such great parents. He’s very well educated, thank God. I was lucky enough to see them a few days ago at the hotel. They came over to greet me, gave me a big hug, and were genuinely proud to see me again.

After that, I want to give it to him straight Cuban style: What he has to do is fuck off!

Mexican style: Go to hell!

And in English: That fake-ass “good to see you” he hit me with? He can shove it straight up his ass. I’m out.

Beyond displaying his prowess with dialect, Arozarena answered a couple of questions about the incident with his response. What did Raleigh say to him in that moment? As it turns out, “good to see you,” with debatable levels of earnestness. Was the moment just some banter between teammates? As Arozarena compliments Raleigh’s parents before effectively telling their son to go fuck himself three different ways, if it is, they are certainly taking the bit to the extreme.

It is often silly to spend much time caring about pleasantries or purported acts of disrespect during competitive events. There’s entertainment in both friendly and unfriendly competition; that said, the latter thrives on reciprocity and the genuine sense that two teams, or people, do not like each other. Absent that, refusing to shake someone’s hand comes off more as hard-assery. Especially right now, hard-assed—particularly American—patriotism is more irritating than tough, especially in a sport like baseball which runs on minor acts of politeness like greeting the catcher or chatting up the first baseman. This is true even where it doesn’t concern two players who will be teammates for the vast majority of the year, and have a locker room culture to maintain.

What happens when the Los Angeles Dodgers are playing on separate teams? Shohei Ohtani sets himself to singlehandedly repairing Japanese–Korean relations. What happens when the Seattle Mariners are playing on different teams, in the lead-up to a season that is set to be very pivotal for them? This, I suppose.

Nevertheless I remain confident that this is a minor incident; that Arozarena and Raleigh and good buds and this was just them working their way through a bit; and that even if it wasn’t, they’ll talk it out in the locker room and carry on for a painless season. Never, in Mariners history, has anything not worked out in the end.