Four-time World Series champion Mookie Betts U-turns on playing for USA after wife gave him brutal ultimatum
LA Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts has made the decision to pull out of next year’s World Baseball Classic after his wife threatened to divorce him if he played.
Betts, 33, appeared on a livestream with Adin Ross this week, and was asked if he intended to represent the USA at the prestigious tournament in March.
‘I can’t now,’ Betts said, in something of a surprising answer. The reason, though, soon became clear.
‘My wife, we’re having the kid. The baby’s due right in the middle of the WBC.’
For some, that will have meant a tough decision, but for Betts, it was seemingly taken away from him by a brutal ultimatum made for him by wife Brianna.
‘She said she would divorce me if I wasn’t there for the kid,’ he revealed. ‘Dad first, it is what it is.’
Mookie Betts has revealed he has opted to keep his marriage alive and not play in the WBC
Betts told Adin Ross that his wife had threatened to divorce him if he missed their baby’s birth
Mookie and Brianna have two children and are waiting to welcome a third in March next year
Betts and his wife are childhood sweethearts, marrying in 2021, and they already have two children together – Kynlee and Kaj.
Their third baby is due in March, with Team USA’s games beginning in Houston at the start of the same month.
If America is to progress through the tournament, as would be expected, the semifinals and finals would take place in Miami in the middle of the month.
The Dodgers star previously played for the US in the same competition back in 2023, helping the team to the final where they eventually lost to Japan.
Shohei Ohtani will once again suit up for Japan, but it is unclear whether his fellow countrymen on the Dodgers – Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki – will join him.
The likes of Aaron Judge, Paul Skenes, Bobby Witt Jr and Corbin Carroll have all pledged their allegiance to the American team ahead of the tournament, which will finish shortly before Major League Baseball’s Opening Day.
