Trip to World Baseball Classic 'can change baseball' for Brazil

The last time Brazil qualified for the World Baseball Classic, one of their standout players, right fielder Lucas Ramirez, was barely beginning elementary school.

A dozen years later, Brazil is heading back to the World Baseball Classic for the second time ever after it took down Germany 6-4 in the final game of the WBC qualifiers at Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium Thursday night in Tucson.

Brazil joined Colombia as teams to qualify for the WBC this week.

“It feels awesome,” said Ramirez, who went 2 for 4 at the plate with an RBI on Thursday. “I’m proud of everybody. Everybody contributed in this game and everybody contributed to the win. ... I’m so proud and happy for my teammates. I’ve always wanted to play for Brazil. We went in and made it. My dream came true.”

Ramirez’s father, former MLB star Manny Ramirez, celebrated on the field with Brazil and participated in the younger Ramirez’s postgame media availability. The older Ramirez asked, “Who taught you how to hit?”

“I taught myself how to hit — and you,” Lucas Ramirez joked.

Getting to the World Baseball Classic for the first time since 2012 “is very important to us,” said Brazil third baseman Leonard Reginatto, who also had an RBI on Thursday.

“This can change baseball down there,” Reginatto said. “We had a lot of people watching and cheering for us. This is my fourth or fifth qualifier — definitely my last one. I can’t play this game much longer, but I’m really happy to finish my career like this. This is a dream come true; not only for me, but for a lot of guys. We’re really happy to qualify.”

‘Manny, the Fox’

Even though Germany has never been to the World Baseball Classic, the sport has been around in Deutschland for decades. The German Baseball and Softball Federation, which started in 1955, oversees operations for the German national baseball and softball teams, youth baseball and Baseball-Bundesliga, the top professional league in the country.

However, funding and support for Germany’s baseball team has been fehlt, which is German for “lacking.”

“We are the No. 4 economy in the world and we have no sponsor,” said Sascha Hermann, who was in Tucson to create content for Germany’s social media accounts. “They don’t think about that. They think about money from the MLB and the Olympics and stuff like that. They don’t see the opportunity to catch up with money and sell the product.”

Hermann, who grew up playing pitcher in Germany, works for a marketing agency that specializes in furniture advertisement. No one produced content for Germany’s baseball team, “so I decided to do that on my own,” Hermann said.

“I’m just a fan,” he said. “I’m not affiliated with the (federation). I want to help. I want to be the change in life I want to see. If the leadership is weak, the company stays weak. We say in Germany, ‘The fish stinks from the head.’ The head is always stinking. It doesn’t stink from the tail, it stinks from the head.’”

Baseball in Germany “had a boom in the (1990s),” and there were around 30,000 baseball players in the country, according to Hermann, but that number has dropped off over the years. But “step by step, it’s coming along a little bit and the people who are into baseball, they’re really excited,” Hermann said.

Hermann said the fastest-rising American sport in Germany is football. Since 2022, the NFL has played four games in Germany. Football is “five times bigger than us,” Hermann said.

Seven years after deciding to shoulder the responsibilities of promoting Germany baseball on social media, Hermann fundraised 10,000 euros to manufacture Germany baseball jerseys and hats for fans.

Hermann also created a mascot for Germany, “Manny, the Fox.”

Why a fox instead of the Weimar eagle?

“In Germany, we don’t have that many animals and a fox has a good image,” Hermann said. “A fox, he’s not that cute, but he’s smart and a killer.”

Hermann has worn the fox mascot costume at baseball games in Taiwan, Mexico, Japan, “all over the world,” he said.

“I like everybody who is crazy enough to watch baseball games and do something crazy and creative, because baseball can be really boring sometimes,” said Hermann, who wasn’t allowed to wear the costume at this week’s MLB-sanctioned event in Tucson.

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Despite Germany not qualifying for the World Baseball Classic, Hermann enjoyed the 40-plus days he spent in Tucson.

“Everyone is so friendly and had time for a chat,” he said. “It’s amazing. People are friendly; Germans are different. The weather (in Tucson), it’s so beautiful and there’s all of this Mexican food. We had so much fun. Everybody is friendly and wants to have a good time. This is only my second stay in the U.S. and I want to to come back.”

Love and baseball

Sharing an avocado on a hiking trail introduced Andy Swanson to his wife, Stephanie, in Spain 10 years ago. But their love for baseball — and statistics — is an essential component to the love they share.

Stephanie Swanson backpacked the nearly 500-mile hiking trail from France to Spain, where she met Andy Swanson.

“I shared parts of my food with him and we just talked for hours,” said Stephanie Swanson, who is a defense contractor.

Andy Swanson, who is retired from the Army and umpires college and minor-league baseball games in Virginia, grew up in several states along the East Coast. He “fell in love with baseball” as a 3-year-old watching the Chicago Cubs and legendary broadcaster Harry Caray on WGN in Jacksonville, Florida. Ironically, Swanson became a fan of the Cardinals, the biggest rival of the Cubs.

“Baseball has been my whole life,” he said.

Swanson’s love for baseball rubbed off on his wife.

“I wasn’t into baseball at all,” Stephanie Swanson said. “I grew up near Oakland and went ti a lot of Athletics games, but I didn’t go to many games as an adult. Once we started dating, he was like, ‘I used to love baseball.’ ‘Well, let’s back into it and go see some games.’ I wasn’t good at paying attention, so he taught me how to score-keep. I’m a nerd and love statistics. Now I score-keep every game.”

The Swansons “already love to travel” and parlayed their passion for baseball-watching and stat-keeping into trips around the world. They’ve been to baseball events and recorded stats for games in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, California, Florida, Canada, Japan, Korea and Germany.

In Tucson, the couple sat behind home plate, stat books and pens in hand, for the World Baseball Classic.

“It’s the ‘Festival of Baseball,’” Andy Swanson said. “It’s the best vibe in the sport. It’s a blast. Just an absolute blast.”

First pitch

Former Arizona Wildcats baseball head coach Andy Lopez threw out the honorary first pitch on Thursday. Lopez led the UA to a national championship in 2012. The three-time National Coach of the Year was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022.

By the numbers

2,247: Attendance for Thursday’s game at Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium.

3: Brazil first baseman Dante Bichette Jr. had a team-high three hits and two RBI on Thursday.

26: Brazil and Colombia join United States, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Canada, Panama, Mexico, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Czech Republic, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Netherlands, Israel, Nicaragua and Chinese Taipei as the 26 teams in the World Baseball Classic bracket in 2026. Pool play will be held in Houston, Miami, Puerto Rico and Tokyo.

They said it

“This is a first-class facility and any organization that wants to play in a first-class facility, they have one here. This is a baseball-playing city. In Southern Arizona, people care about the game and and you can see it. You can just see it in the enthusiasm that we’ve seen here all week. So I think the future is very bright for baseball in Tucson.” — World Baseball Classic president Jim Small, on the future of professional baseball in Tucson

Photos: Brazil edges Germany 6-4 for final spot in WBC