Yadier Molina: Adam Jones 'has to apologize to the Puerto Rican people'
The World Baseball Classic may be over, but the fireworks continue.
After the United States' 8-0 victory against Puerto Rico in the tournament's final on Wednesday night, multiple American players said that the Puerto Rican team has given them bulletin-board material by having a parade planned the next day.
"We heard and we saw T-shirts were made and printed out for the Puerto Rican team," U.S. outfielder Andrew McCutchen said, according to ESPN. We even heard a flight was made for them for that parade because they said they were going to win. That ignited us, we were ready to go, and we showed that tonight."
However, the Puerto Rican team had the parade scheduled win or lose, to celebrate with fans in their home country.
"It's funny because they have been talking about that, but it's all about the country; it's not about our team," Puerto Rico infielder Carlos Correa said. "Our country has been behind us since we have started. When we were in Mexico, we told the governor in Puerto Rico that if we made it to the finals, we need to plane to get back and celebrate with our people."
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It's unknown whether or not the American players were aware that the celebration would be held either way.
United States outfielder Adam Jones also said the pre-planned event "didn't sit well with us," and Puerto Rico catcher Yadier Molina took exception to what Jones said.
“He really has to get informed because he shouldn’t have said those comments, let alone in public and mocking the way [preparations] were made," Molina said. “He has to apologize to the Puerto Rican people. Obviously, you wanted to win; he didn’t know what this means to [our] people.”
“I’m sending a message to [Jones], saying, ‘Look at this, right now you’re in spring training working out, and we’re with our people, with our silver medals.’ You’re in spring training and you’re working ... you have no idea how to celebrate your honors, you don’t know what it means.”
Correa expressed how much of a unifying force the tournament was in Puerto Rico.
"There were no crimes, there were no assassinations back home while we were playing in this classic," Correa said. "Everybody was dyeing their hair blond, so we had our whole nation behind us that is going through tough times right now."
The entire situation comes off like one big misunderstanding, but Correa stated the undeniable fact that the Puerto Rican players took more pride in the tournament than their American counterparts.
"It's as simple as this: If you ask Angel Pagan, if you ask Yadi Molina if it feels better than a World Series, they would say yes," Correa said. "If you ask one of the American guys, they will say, 'No, not even close.'
"So that just tells you the way we play when we represent our country is a lot different than when they play. A lot of their guys say no to the baseball classic. None of our main guys say no to the baseball classic."