The Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals played an incredible, white-knuckle NL wild-card game Wednesday night, but the most exciting thing to happen during the game didn't even take place on the field. No, it was seeing Juan Soto sitting in the front row in a Trea Turner Washington Nationals jersey, cheering on his former teammate, that really got the baseball world fired up.
And while that may seem fairly ridiculous to say, it shouldn't be lost on all of us just how unique it was to see one of the best players in the game sitting in the stands, just as excited to watch the NL wild-card matchup as the rest of us. And wearing the jersey of his buddy to boot.
As you can imagine throughout the game, the cameras would cut to Juan Soto cheering on his ex-teammates Turner and pitcher Max Scherzer, who gutted out 4 1/3 innings of work while never really having his best stuff. In all my time watching baseball, I can never recall a scene quite like that. It was… oddly intoxicating almost, to see someone like Juan Soto so in love with baseball that he went to Los Angeles to watch his friends play.
A subtle gesture, perhaps, that really speaks volumes about the kind of player who could – and should – become the face of America's pastime for years to come.
But Soto's appearance at the NL wild-card game doesn't really matter all that much if he doesn't just so happen to also be the best hitter in the game. Though the Nationals finished with a pretty grotesque 65-win season and traded off assets that puts them firmly in rebuilding mode, Juan Soto finished with yet another MVP-caliber season (and should really win the award if there is any justice in this world). He finished the year with a .313/.465/.534 line with 29 home runs, 95 RBIs, 145 walks and a 163 wRC+. His advanced stats will also make you sing to the heavens – and did I mention he's still just 22 years old for another few weeks?
It's mind-boggling to consider what Juan Soto has done in the game already over the course of his first four seasons, and there should be many more great ones to come in what is already shaping up to be a Hall of Fame-caliber career.
So it's all the more impressive – and downright cool – that Soto showed up to a game like he did to support his friends and simply enjoy some great postseason baseball. It's so easy to forget athletes are – get this – people just like us, and baseball has never done a good job marketing its stars like this, especially in the post-steroids era.
Though to be fair, a guy like Mike Trout has never seemed all that interested in positioning himself as the true face of the game, despite the fact that he's been the best player in the world for about a decade. It doesn't help either that he's been on perennial mediocre Los Angeles Angels teams.
But Juan Soto has already become a household name to many fans thanks to the Nationals' World Series run in 2019, and the fact that someone of his caliber can insert himself into a game like that as a spectator, and have fun like the rest of us, goes a long way to showing the next generation of fans that, hey, baseball actually is supposed to be a good time despite what the unwritten rules might say. Maybe this is waxing poetic too much about a guy simply watching a baseball game, but like the line goes, how can you not be romantic about baseball?
Guys like Juan Soto, Tim Anderson, Randy Arozarena – and others who are now getting the spotlight during the postseason – get this. The future of Major League Baseball is actually quite bright in spite of the game's best efforts sometimes.
And from the looks of it, Juan Soto might just be leading that bright future.
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