Six Essential Story Lines for the World Baseball Classic

It will be difficult for the 2026 World Baseball Classic to live up to the 2023 edition. That tournament was a lightning strike. It culminated in a matchup that felt scripted: Shohei Ohtani, the sport’s most transcendent star, staring down Mike Trout, his then–Angels teammate and one of the best players of the 21st century. Ohtani struck Trout out, and Japan won the championship over the United States. But the larger takeaway wasn’t just who won. It was that high-stakes elimination-game baseball is the zenith of sporting drama.