America's Wild, Weird World Baseball Classic

March 16, 2026·58 min·5 clips

Why is Team USA treating the World Baseball Classic like a war while other countries celebrate with coffee and dances?

March 16 sets the frame, then gets busy. Alex Kirshner handles the usual Slate housekeeping before turning to a World Baseball Classic he clearly enjoys. Bracket talk follows fast. Duke is the men's number one overall seed, with Arizona and Michigan close enough to make the top line feel less settled. Parity is not exactly overflowing. The women's field sounds tighter, with UConn and UCLA hanging over the rest. Sarah Strong makes UConn feel like the obvious case. Lauren Betts gives UCLA a real answer, at least until March starts messing with tidy logic. The panel still leaves room for weirdness. Gonzaga is Alex's annual quasi-Cinderella pick, though being a three seed takes some of the romance out of it. Lindsay expects some madness, just not necessarily a double digit seed barging into the Final Four. Enough disruption to bother the chalk will do. The WNBA stays nearby through Lindsay's CBA watch, because this show rarely treats games as separate from labor. Epstein also gets pulled into the sports conversation, strange as that sounds and maybe inevitable by now. Slate Plus closes things out with an 83 point NBA game ethics segment, pitched with the show's usual dry disbelief.

As heard by us

A brisk sports conversation links a strange United States baseball team, March Madness forecasts, and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal as a sports story.

Hang Up and Listen treats the World Baseball Classic as a sports story about a strange but seemingly effective United States team, with the final still unresolved.

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Why you'd press play

You get a weird but probably successful United States World Baseball Classic team, March Madness bracket talk, and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal turning into a sports story.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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