Three months ago, Ned Colletti, the former Los Angeles Dodgers general manager who had taken on the task of assembling a team to represent Italy at the 2026 World Baseball Classic, dreamed, hoped, and predicted, but didn’t foretell this.
This, of course, being that Italy would knock off the United States, one of the most powerful baseball teams ever assembled, in pool play at Houston’s Daikin Park during the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
“I’ve been the underdog most of my career, most of my life, so I’m used to the role,” Colletti told me at the Italian American Baseball Foundation gala in New York last December. “And I know underdogs can succeed. And when people take an underdog for granted or really don’t give them their due respect, crazy stuff can happen.”
Colletti knew that his team was going to be an underdog no matter what, but he relished the role, and longed for the day that italy upset the United States at the WBC. He said it before a crowd of 500-plus people at the IABF’s annual gala, and there were undoubtedly more than a few who chomped on their steaks and though, “Yeah, sure,” when he said that Italy was going to beat the U.S. this year.
But crazy stuff did happen. Kyle Teel homered in the top of the second, cranking a two-out solo homer in to the seats at Houston’s Daikin Park to give Italy a 1-0 lead. Then Jac Caglianone got hit by a pitch, and Sam Antonacci followed with a homer that made it 3-0.
Suddenly, it seemed like Italy might not be the underdog, that maybe, this team of Italian Americans and Samuel Aldegheri could possibly give Team USA a run for their money. A two-run homer from Jac Caglianone, the budding star for the Kansas City Royals, made it 5-0 in the fourth, and then three more runs in the sixth put Italy up 8-0 and suddenly the idea of Italy beating the United States had gone from absurd to improbably to highly likely.
Sure, the U.S. battled back, as a team loaded with talent would be expected to do so. A solo homer from Gunnar Henderson in the sixth, a three-run homer from Pete Crow-Armstrong in the seventh, an RBI single by Roman Anthony in the eighth, and another solo homer by Crow-Armstrong in the ninth made it an 8-6 game.
Speaking at the IABF’s annual gala in the Bronx, Colletti said that he looked forward to Italy upsetting the U.S., because he knew that the team had the potential, using a blend of veteran talent and youth to shock the baseball world.
He was right.
Most of Italy’s players on the field at Daikin Park in Houston are both American citizens and Major Leaguers, sure, but they’re not players of the caliber who are playing for the United States.
And even before this historic win for Italy, Colletti already knew what it would mean, because there were already leaders developing for Italy who would lead this group of players for years to come.
“The next WBC after this, there’ll be some of the leadership to it. We’ve got a great leader in Vinnie Pasquantino from Kansas City. And then he’s going to be a leader not only for this club, but also for the younger players. So I’m looking for a combination,” Colletti said. “The people that we’re thinking about and that we are considering to represent this great country are both younger players and veteran players.”
When Aaron Judge, one of the most fearsome hitters in baseball history, stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth representing the tying run with Italy leading 8-6, Italy’s Greg Weissert didn’t blink, striking him out on four pitches to secure the biggest win in Italy’s baseball history.
The dividends that this win will pay in years to come from Italian baseball remain to be seen, but to draw a parallel, the success of the United States in ice hockey over the last 46 years has been directly tied to Team USA’s win at Lake Placid in the 1980 Winter Olympics.
And while perhaps a win in a pool play game at the WBC isn’t a miracle on grass, it’s still a very significant moment for a county that only put its first homegrown player, Sam Aldegheri, into Major League Baseball last year.
Following the game, Italy manager Francisco Cervelli, born in Venezuela of Italian heritage, told the media that this will have significance going forward.
“I’ve been doing this job for one year already, not only here with the WBC, in Italy as well. Trying to convince people that we can play baseball, that we can do special things in Italy,” Cervelli, a former New York Yankees catcher, said. “So what I like about this result is they’re going to start believing more. More people are going to be around us. They’re going to support us because we need help. We cannot do it by ourselves.”
His players, most of them Major Leaguers, played like it, and hopefully, the kids in Italy, some of them will take notice and maybe pick up a bat, a ball, a glove, start throwing, start catching, start playing this game.
Years ago, Jim Bouton told us, “A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”
But first, you have to pick up that baseball.
After tonight, more kids in Italy are going to be gripping baseballs, the same way kids in the United States picked up hockey sticks after the U.S. shocked the Soviet Union in Lake Placid.
And years from now, when Italy is a country with homegrown baseball talent on the world stage, they’ll look back at this game in Houston in 2026, a moment Ned Colletti told us would happen, and recognize that the Azzurri’s ascendance went vertical tonight.
Photo: Italy players celebrates after defeating the United States in a World Baseball Classic game, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
