First came a widely publicized moment between Team USA catcher Cal Raleigh and Mexican outfielder Randy Arozarena. During one at bat, Arozarena extended a friendly hand to shake with Raleigh. The men know each other well—after all, they play together on the Seattle Mariners. Raleigh didn’t move a muscle. Arozarena, understandably so, took it as a personal insult. In a postgame Spanish-language interview, Arozarena explained how he felt in greater detail:
“I’d like to tell him in four languages, that’s what I’d like,” Arozarena said. “First I’ll tell him in Spanish, look. All he has to do is thank God he has such wonderful parents, yeah? That his parents are very well-mannered. I got to see them two days ago at the hotel, and they went to say hi, they gave me a hug. Said they were very proud of me and happy to see me again. The other thing I want to say to him, I’ll tell it to him Cuban-style. What he needs to do is go fuck himself. Mexican-style: He can go fuck himself. And in English, I’m gonna say it to him in English. That ‘good to see you’ he gave me? He can shove it up his ass.”
Raleigh, on the other hand, saw no issue with his actions. “I love Randy. I do,” he later said in an interview. “I hate that this is a thing. There’s no beef. When we get back to Seattle, he’s my brother. We’re family. I already reached out to him, so it’s just a competitive environment and I know he would want the same for me when we’re on the team and playoff baseball. I just have a responsibility for my teammates here right now and my country, and emotions are running high.”
His message was somewhat undercut by the shirt he wore that said “FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY.” The phrase comes from markings on the M18A1 Claymore, an antipersonnel mine that first became widely used in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. In a tournament meant to symbolize baseball’s global reach and international spirit, Raleigh managed to invoke a Hegsethian fetishization of killing foreigners. He also emulated the Claymore’s imprecision by going 0-for-9 at the plate.
