HOUSTON — In the lead-up to Canada’s win-and-in clash with Cuba earlier this week, Justin Morneau addressed the hitters during a pre-game meeting, dropped a message into the team’s group chat, and manager Ernie Whitt knew nothing more needed to be said.
“It was a great little talk that, if it doesn’t inspire you, then something’s wrong with you,” Whitt relayed about his hitting coach. “It came from him and he’s been through it himself. It just showed a true Canadian.”
The national team, of course, won that Wednesday contest 7-2 to secure the top spot in Pool A and the program’s first-ever quarterfinal berth at the World Baseball Classic, which goes Friday night against a powerhouse American club at Houston’s Daikin Park (Sportsnet, 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT). Morneau’s message that day — “It’s an honour to play for your country, and any time you have Canada across your chest, we create our own memories here to last a lifetime.” — will once again apply, and perhaps resonate even more.
“I think they liked it. I mean, I liked it, got me going, ready to go,” a smiling Morneau, the 2006 American League MVP, said. “You only get so many of these moments in a lifetime and you want to embrace it when you do. Don’t fight it. Don’t try to go against it. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Look around. Like (in the win against Puerto Rico on Tuesday) night, I spent time looking around, listening to that crowd. It was awesome. It’s what you play for. It’s what I’ve missed for the last nine years, since the last WBC.”
Morneau’s final game came at the 2017 Classic, when he went 0-for-4 in an 8-0 loss to the United States that capped an 0-3 performance — Canada’s worst showing at the event.
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He’d also been part of the national team’s previous high-water mark at the tournament — the 2006 8-6 upset of the Americans — as well as the great contests against the United States in 2009, a 6-5 loss when Toronto hosted a group, and in 2013 when the Canadians let a 3-2 lead get away in the eighth inning for a 9-4 loss.
The countries also met in 2023, when Canada saved its best pitching for other opponents and suffered a 12-1 mercy-rule defeat. This sixth WBC clash only materialized when the Americans finished second in Pool B after an 8-6 upset loss to Italy, which went 4-0.
Being that it’s the quarterfinals this time, there’s more at stake, especially for a favoured American team trying to escape the muck caused by manager Mark DeRosa’s careless comments about his team’s status.
The Canadians, in contrast, are in bonus territory now — although the game is an opportunity for a new generation of players to create another enduring memory.
“What I remember is the highlights that they play every year at the Baseball Canada banquet, I get to see those over and over again and they don’t get old,” Michael Soroka, who starts Friday night, said of his connection to the 2006 win over the U.S. “We’ll go play our game. We have a very talented lineup. I know a lot of those guys are excited about getting out of a park in Puerto Rico that was pretty well holding every ball in the park.
“Watching that 2006 game and watching the fire that those guys played with, it doesn’t get old. So I think we’re looking to do the same thing.”
Adam Loewen, at the time a top pitching prospect for the Baltimore Orioles, started the game in 2006, and after Morneau’s RBI groundout gave Canada a 1-0 lead in the first, the Americans loaded the bases with one out in the bottom half, prompting a mound visit from Whitt.
“Chipper (Jones) was coming up and I said, ‘What are you going to do?’” Whitt recalled. “He said, ‘I’m going to get him out.’ He turned a double play, got out of the inning and all of a sudden we start hitting the ball. It was a lot of fun. It was good.”
Canada led 8-0 after the top of the fifth before the United States rallied with a six-spot in the bottom of the frame. But Eric Cyr, Scott Mathieson and Steve Green locked it down over the final four innings, with Morneau collecting Mark Teixeira’s grounder to end it.
Fun as that was, the Canadians got throttled by Mexico 9-1 in their pool finale, finishing in a three-way tie with the Americans and Mexicans at 2-1 and were eliminated by a tiebreaker. That’s why, before the win over Cuba, Morneau said to his wife as he was leaving the hotel, “Just please let me win,” noting how, “I’ve been let down so many times.”
Not in 2026, though, and now there’s the chance for an even bigger highlight. Yet more than anything, Morneau wants his players to not only seize the opportunity at hand, but to make sure they enjoy it, too.
“It’s a different level here,” he said. “Sometimes when you’re in the middle of (playing), you don’t really realize it, you try not to let those moments kind of affect you. Then when you get done, you realize those moments are the ones that matter. If we can make this our moment, I think it’ll be huge.”
It certainly would.
