WATCH: Cardinals Outfielder Can’t Understand Japanese Teammates At World Baseball Classic In Hilarious Pregame Huddle
St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar could not understand his teammates in a pregame huddle while the team spoke Japanese.
The World Baseball Classic is set to get underway on Wednesday. The tournament consists of players across the globe playing for their respective countries or ties the player has to that country.
For example, Nootbar was born and raised in California, but his mother is Japanese, so he can play for Japan in the competition. The Cardinals outfielder admitted that he would prepare himself as well as he could before the World Baseball Classic starts.
“I am going to try [and learn the language] a little bit,” Nootbaar said via The Japan Times. “Obviously, it’s going to be tough to learn a language in a month. I’m going to try my best. My mom is singing the Japanese national anthem in the house. I’m repeating it. We’re just doing the little stuff like that.”
In a video released by the Japanese baseball’s public relations Twitter account, Nootbaar’s studies seemed to fail him. Prior to a scrimmage against the Chunichi Dragons of the Nippon Professional Baseball (Japan’s top-tier baseball league), infielder Kazuma Okamoto spoke to his teammates to fire them up before the game, but the Cardinals outfielder seemed absolutely lost.
“What’d they say?” Nootbaar asked with a smile to his translator.
The interpreter stood on the outside of the huddle and told him he “couldn’t hear shit,” so he was no help for Nootbaar.
Japan’s first game in the tournament will begin on Thursday when they play China in Tokyo.
Nootbaar is not the only player competing in the World Baseball Classic for a country he did not grow up in.
Former star pitcher and Connecticut native Matt Harvey will pitch for Italy, California native and Los Angeles Dodgers star Freddie Freeman will play for Canada, and Trayce Thompson, brother of NBA star Klay Thompson, will play for Great Britain.
Watch above via @samuraijapan_pr.
