The 2026 World Baseball Classic

Your World Last Week, 3/16

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

You know how sometimes a lot of stuff happens in a week, but really nothing stands out so you really don’t remember anything? Good times. It’s almost Spring. It’s St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow. No matter how bad life is, it’s good right now. Or it could at least be worse. It could still be early February and there could be snow on the ground. Lots of snow, frozen solid because it’s too cold to melt.

So March Madness is here. Locally, Lehigh University is in the big dance, as are two Philly schools, Villanova and Penn, while St. Joe’s is in the NIT. It seems like most of New York City is in, with St. John’s, LIU, and Hofstra in. I haven’t filled out my brackets yet (that’s tomorrow morning), but I think I’m split between Florida and Arizona at the moment, but also considering Duke. Here in Easton, PA, we celebrate March Matness religiously, with this week’s NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships almost being a religious holiday. I’m taking Penn State to win by a million. In the World Baseball Classic this week the United States and Venezuela have advanced to play a championship game tomorrow night filled with geopolitical irony this year. Phillies Cristopher Sanchez, Aaron Nola, and prospect Dante Nori have all stood out for their teams in this tournament, while Phillies Americans Brad Keller, Kyle Schwarber, and Bryce Harper will play in tomorrow’s final. I’m enjoying it. This past weekend was the New Jersey State High School Wrestling Championships, and while the wrestling was good, two tweets stood out- this one about the best Italian names in each weight class and this photo of an amazing scene at the end of a semi-final match on the IBEW Local 102 mat. Peak stuff. Also if you ever thought of giving up on something, 33 year old Izzy Balsiger became an All-American 13 years after previously achieving the honor at the NCAA Division III Wrestling tournament.

In more serious matters, the United States suffered casualties in a war that it won a week or two ago in Iran. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq was hit by a drone. The President is pressuring NATO and China to reopen the Straight of Hormuz. Gas prices are up. Israel is talking to Lebanon as it increases it’s ground campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has breast cancer and I wish her a speedy recovery. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has threatened to revoke licenses for television networks that don’t cover the Iran War the way he likes. Congress doesn’t seem super pleased, but they can’t get themselves out of a paper bag. A federal judge has blocked parts of RFK Jr.’s vaccine guidelines. The USDA is making indentured servitude great again, deciding to increase temporary visas for immigrant migrant farmworkers and lower their pay. There are major primary elections tomorrow in Illinois and apparently Altoona, if you believe that. New York City is lowering speed limits to 15mph in school zones. I’m fine with that.

Last night was the Oscar’s. I watched Conan’s opening monologue and thought it was pretty funny, but Conan O’Brien is funny. “One Battle After Another” won best picture. Jessie Buckley won best actress for her role in “Hamnet.” Michael B. Jordan won best actor for his role in “Sinners,” officially making him the second most famous Michael Jordan. “Sinners” won four Oscars as a movie, while “One Battle After Another” won six. Nicole Kidman showed up Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez on the Red Carpet. And in my favorite win, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” won best documentary feature, a big fuck you to Vlad. I still couldn’t sit there and watch the whole show though, ADHD gets in the way.

Well it’s just about St. Patrick’s Day. Go drink a green beer or some Guinness, throw on your Birds jersey for the day, and blast the Dropkick Murphy’s. Oh, and eat all of the corned beef and cabbage that I don’t get to first.

Your World Last Week, 3/10

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

It’s 70+ degrees outside. Even a month ago, this was unthinkable. Then again, everything on our television right now was unthinkable a couple years ago, so keep perspective, folks.

So anyway, the news… yikes. In the biggest news in the world, Big Foot is apparently in Portage County, Ohio. While I’d like to call this crackpot shit, apparently their are footprints of a very large individual in the areas he was “seen.” In very similar news, Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas had their primary elections last Tuesday. In the premier races of the night, James Talarico won the Texas Senate Democratic Primary and John Cornyn and Ken Paxton are heading for a runoff on the Republic side. You may recall that Paxton was literally indicted for securities fraud and investigated for abuse of office, but hey, that seems like Senate material for me. Meanwhile, human shitstain Congressman Tony Gonzales has withdrawn from his re-election after finishing first with 43%, but failing to avoid the runoff. You might re-call that Gonzales had an affair with aide Regina Santos-Aviles and she ended up committing suicide by lighting herself on fire. It’s amazing that 43% of the people voted for him. Of course, Gonzales was the “moderate” in this race, as his opponent, Brandon Herrera, wants you to know that he is the proud owner of a 1939 edition of Mein Kampf. Meanwhile in North Carolina longtime dictator President of the North Carolina Senate, Phil Berger, is trailing his primary by 23 votes for re-election.

Moving from the profoundly stupid to the merely dumb, Taylor Lorenz, someone that younger people apparently made into a famous culture reporter, is in fact a moron, and has no idea who is paying her. In New York City, some Hamas-loving, loser children tried throwing an explosive device at protestors they disagreed with and got arrested after it failed to blow up. First off, these kids are too useless to even get terrorism right. Second, it turns out they had very wealthy refugee parents here in Pennsylvania. The Democratic National Committee is basically broke, which may be good news for Democrats. New polling suggests that Democratic voters think the Democratic Party is insane, which is completely true. Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk to the Air Force Academy Advisory Board, because… idk. The National Cancer Institute hasn’t made a single grant this fiscal year. For real. And there’s this guy, Professor Jiang over in China, who thinks Jewish people created Islam, or at least says that. He also thinks 20% of white American girls in their 20’s are on OnlyFans. He has 2,000,000 YouTube followers. The internet really was a mistake.

The World Baseball Classic is underway, and there are no shocks so far. The United States, Japan, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico are all good at baseball. Kyle Schwarber and Aaron Judge can hit a baseball very far. Paul Skenes is good at pitching. The biggest surprise of the tournament is Cal Raleigh stiffing Randy Arozarena when he tried to shake his hand (they’re teammates on Seattle) and Arozarena ripping him after the game. I’m with Arozarena here. In other sports news, it’s conference tournament time in NCAA Basketball. For my money, I’m taking Michigan (Big Ten), Duke (ACC), UCONN (Big East), Florida (SEC) and Texas Tech (Big 12) to win the major men’s conferences. Some of the women’s tournaments are already done, but if you’re filling out your bracket, you can pick UCONN and South Carolina to win almost any game they play. Closer to home here in Pennsylvania, Penn State won yet another Big Ten Wrestling title this past weekend and their media starter has like 1.5 losses on the season, so they should win another national title. In closing, sad news, the “Exciting Whites” broke up in Philadelphia, as Reed Blankenship has moved on. This is life as an NFL fan. Your team wins, your players start getting paid the real money to go elsewhere.

Is there other news? Oh yes, war with Iran. American and Israeli bombers killed the Ayatollah and many other leading religious radicals in the country. What has commenced is essentially a regional war of damn near everyone in the region against Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and some rebels in Yemen. Of course, this is making weird bedfellows, as Pakistan has pledged to defend Saudi Arabia, who is on the same side as the United States and Israel, even though Pakistan is fighting Afghanistan right now, and just a few years ago Americans entered Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden. Even more telling- Trump doesn’t seem to have any plan for who will now take over in Iran, assuming we can even topple the IRGC that are still in place. Remember all that talk in 2024 that a vote for Kamala would lead to war? Oh yes, the good ole’ days.