NEW YORK — Barry Larkin doesn’t have any delusions of baseball supplanting soccer as the king of sports in Brazil.
But the Hall of Fame shortstop, who serves as manager for Brazil in baseball’s version of the World Cup, is deeply ambitious about the potential to cultivate the game in Latin America’s most populous nation — and he knows the best way to do it is to spark national pride by winning at the international level.
Brazil is competing in this week’s World Baseball Classic qualifier at MCU Park in Brooklyn, New York, against Israel, Great Britain and Pakistan. The winner secures the final berth in the 16-team field for the 2017 WBC and advances to face South Korea, Chinese Taipei and the Netherlands in pool play in March in Seoul. Brazil took the first step toward returning to the WBC main draw Thursday with a 10-0 win over Pakistan. Two more victories would secure a trip to Korea.
Larkin has assembled a roster that includes six players younger than 20 and four players at least 40. Nine played this year for minor league teams affiliated with Major League Baseball organizations, including two at the Triple-A level. Four are natives of Cuba who defected. Three were born in the United States but have parental ties to Brazil. Several players and coaches are Brazilians of Japanese heritage.
How unusual is Team Brazil? In Thursday’s game, 40-year-old outfielder Juan Carlos Muniz hit an inside-the-park home run, and 15-year-old pitcher Eric Pardinho took the mound the next inning.
Somehow, all the puzzle pieces seem to fit together seamlessly — even if clubhouse chatter is delivered in Portuguese, Japanese, English and Spanish. Larkin said he speaks Portunhol, a conversational blend of Portuguese and Spanish.
“What I speak is baseball,” Larkin said. “The ability to communicate is so important, but it’s reciprocal in the fact that guys from Brazil who want to play in the big leagues [know that] communication is in English. So there is a willingness on both sides to be willing to be able to communicate. That makes it much, much easier.”
Larkin’s team certainly is a baseball melting pot, and Triple-A pitcher Andre Rienzo, who has major league service time with the Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox, said he cherishes the opportunity to represent his country with a diverse group of teammates.
“I always do my best to be [available] to try and help the team the most I can,” Rienzo said. “For me, that is the best baseball I play all year. I have fun. I play with friends, and we are family.”
In addition to Larkin, the coaching staff includes longtime major leaguers LaTroy Hawkins and Steve Finley. The trio has a combined 59 years of playing experience in the majors.
Team Brazil celebrated its greatest triumph in September 2012, defeating a favored Panama team twice in Panama’s home stadium to earn a spot in the 2013 WBC. Larkin was also the coach of that team, and he sees the achievement as a landmark moment for his program.
“That was fantastic,” Larkin said. “It was kind of a culmination of the years prior, putting together the program down in Brazil and seeing some of the challenges and overcoming some of the hurdles. … I just can’t stop smiling because to see some of those guys and see how they’re received and respected [at home in Brazil] is a very positive, positive thing.”
Brazil subsequently went winless in pool play at the 2013 WBC, which relegated the team back to the qualifying round. Still, the bar has been raised, and Team Brazil badly wants to get back to the WBC main draw in 2017.
“We’re here to compete, and we always expect to win,” said shortstop Leonardo Reginatto, who played at Triple-A in the Minnesota Twins organization this season. “We want to go to Korea.”
Brazil is home to the world’s largest foreign population of Japanese people, so it’s no surprise that its baseball history has a heavy Japanese influence. It was Japanese immigrants who introduced the sport to Brazil in 1916.
“This year, we complete 100 years of baseball history in Brazil,” bench coach Mitsuyoshi Sato said through an interpreter. “There were highs and lows during those 100 years. It wasn’t just a steady [growth]. In the beginning, it was a recreational activity for the immigrants from Japan. They came to Brazil, and in their free time, they played baseball.”
Sato joined the national program before the 1983 Pan-American games and never left. Now he’s an institution in Brazilian baseball. Born in Japan, he immigrated to Brazil as a child. He has three sons involved with the team and all are Brazil natives. Estevao Sato is the vice president of Brazil’s baseball federation. Renan Sato is the first-base coach, and Reinaldo Sato is an infielder on the current team.
The Bichette family is much newer to the Brazilian team. The American-born sons of former Colorado Rockies slugger Dante Bichette, Dante Jr. and Bo, qualify to play because their mother, Mariana, is a native of Porto Alegre, Brazil. Their maternal grandmother is a lifelong Brazilian, and their grandfather is a native of China who immigrated to Brazil. The whole family is in Brooklyn to attend the qualifier.
“It means more to my grandma and grandpa than anyone could imagine,” Dante Bichette Jr. said.
MLB is taking a keen interest in Brazil, hoping to expand its footprint deeper into South America. Larkin, Hawkins and Finley became affiliated with Brazil through MLB’s international arm, and MLB has provided coaching to top prospects at the Yakult national training facility, which opened six years ago in Ibiuna.
Yan Gomes became the first Brazilian-born MLB player when he broke in with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2012. Since then, two others have followed in his footsteps — Rienzo debuted with the White Sox in 2013 and Paulo Orlando joined the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
Ultimately MLB will measure success in Brazil by participation numbers, which can be boosted by the grass-roots message that soccer isn’t the only sport that can provide a financial road out of the impoverished urban favelas.
“I think kids in Brazil see that this is a real option for them, and that has a lot to do with the success that these guys have had on the field,” Larkin said.
If Brazil wins the Brooklyn qualifier, it has the opportunity to add two more important pieces to its roster for WBC pool play — major leaguers Gomes and Orlando. There’s no reason to believe they won’t successfully step right in on a team that Rienzo said prides itself on unity.
“Every time I put on the jersey with the name Brazil on the front, that is the most important [team] in my life,” Rienzo said. “I’ve played for the Marlins and the White Sox, but sorry, that is the most important team.”
