Chisholm plans to play for Great Britain in WBC
Jazz Chisholm Jr. will be playing on an international stage.
The Miami Marlins’ second baseman said on the Bally Sports Florida broadcast of the team’s game against the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday that he plans to play in the World Baseball Classic for Great Britain.
Great Britain and the Czech Republic advanced to the 20-team tournament field by finishing as the top two teams in the Regensburg, Germany, qualifying tournament.
Chisholm, who was born in Nassau, Bahamas, played for Great Britain in the qualifying round for the 2017 tournament, but the team lost to Israel in the championship match and failed to make the main tournament.
Six years later, his next chance has arrived.
“It’s going to be sick for me,” Chisholm said on the broadcast, “because you’re out there and you never really get a chance to ever play with anybody from your hometown or even family members at that. I’m about to get to experience it all. Bahamians are really British, so it’s just sick. It’s a significant, amazing feeling.”
The 2023 World Baseball
Classic will be March 8-21, beginning with four sites — Miami’s loanDepot park, Phoenix’s Chase Field, the Tokyo Dome and Intercontinental Baseball Stadium in Taichung, Taiwan – hosting five teams each for a round-robin tournament. The top two teams in each field then advance to the quarterfinals, which will be held in Miami (advancing teams from the Miami and Phoenix pools) and Tokyo (advancing teams from the Tokyo and Taiwan pools). The semifinals and championships will also be held at
loanDepot park.
It’s undetermined where Chisholm and Great Britain will begin the tournament. Each of the four pools will take one of the final qualifying teams — Great Britain, Czech Republic and the two teams that advance out of the final qualifying tournament in Panama on Sept. 30-Oct. 5.
JAZZ’S INJURIES
In addition to the news about his World Baseball Classic plans, Chisholm provided an update on his two injuries — the stress fracture in his lower back
and the torn meniscus in his right knee that he had surgery on last week.
Chisholm said he sustained the knee injury while sliding into a base during spring training and had been playing through it all season before suffering the back injury that put him on the injured list June 29.
He still managed to steal 12 bases, hit 14 home runs, log 45 RBI and post an .860 on-baseplus-slugging mark over 60 games.
“We went and got an MRI. It came back that I tore my meniscus,”
Chisholm said. “I asked the doctor, ‘Hey, can I play this season? Because I feel like I’m really gonna tear it up this season. So can I play?’
“And he was like, ‘You can but you’re gonna be dealing with a lot of swelling every day and all that stuff.’ I was like, ‘I’ll just take care of that and that’d be fine.’ And going on, I ended up playing the whole season and just planned to get the surgery after the season.
“I went through a lot of swelling and a lot of changing my mind in the middle of stolen bases, kind of slide in different ways. Most of the times I got thrown out was because of my knee and how I was getting into the bag.”
Chisholm said he is scheduled to get a back scan the first week of October, which will be about 21⁄2 weeks removed from the knee surgery. The hope is that he’ll be cleared to resume baseball activities at that point.
“I already threw away my crutches,” Chisholm said. “As soon as I realized that I could stand off them, I just like threw them straight to the garbage.”