Where Is The World Baseball Classic 2026: Josh Naylor’s Canada Finds a Base in Carolina
For those asking where is the world baseball classic 2026, Team Canada’s practical answer is Carolina, Puerto Rico — players were at Estadio Roberto Clemente for workouts as the squad prepared to open against Colombia. The image was specific: Josh Naylor, the national team captain from Mississauga, Ont. and with the Seattle Mariners, wearing a 1987 Canada Cup Wayne Gretzky hockey jersey during practice, a small personal ritual before a Saturday morning (11 a. m. ET) game that carries outsized meaning.
Where Is The World Baseball Classic 2026
Where the tournament sits for Team Canada is as much a location as it is a moment. Carolina, Puerto Rico, and Estadio Roberto Clemente have been the immediate stage for the Canadian group as it readies for its opener against Colombia. That opening game is set for Saturday morning (11 a. m. ET) and follows practices where veterans and young players moved through drills, pregame routines and gestures of national pride: Naylor said, “I like representing great players, current and alumni players, so I brought a ton of jerseys I had back home. ”
Why Josh Naylor wears the captain’s C, and what it means for the group
Named captain by manager Ernie Whitt and the Baseball Canada brain-trust, Josh Naylor carries visible leadership in a team built to mix experience and promise. Naylor described being “humbled” at the honour and tied it to childhood memories and family: he has brothers who followed similar national-team paths. He added, “But I think everyone, in their own way, can be a captain. Everyone can lead as an individual. Hold yourself accountable. Work hard, play hard, practice hard. ”
Third-base coach Stubby Clapp, a long-time part of the national program, put the choice in blunt terms about the way Naylor plays and leads: “pardon my English, but he comes to kick ass every day. That’s what you want in your leader. Because whatever he does everybody’s going to follow. ” Manager Ernie Whitt amplified that operational approach, explaining how leadership is delegated across veterans — Tyler O’Neill for outfielders, Naylor for infielders and the whole team, and James Paxton for the pitching staff — and urging younger players to lean on that experience: “we’ve got all kinds of knowledge here for you, don’t be afraid to reach out to them. ”
How the Toronto Blue Jays’ run is shaping Team Canada’s aims
Energy from domestic professional success has threaded into the national roster’s mindset. Mike Soroka, a member of the Team Canada World Baseball Classic roster, praised the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays for lighting a spark in Canadian baseball and said, “What the Blue Jays do when they make runs like they did last year, they light a fire in Canadian baseball, and I think a lot of us are looking to continue that. ”
That fuel is practical as well as symbolic: Canada’s roster blends veterans such as Jameson Taillon, Tyler O’Neill, James Paxton and Josh Naylor with prospects like Adam Macko, and the group has an explicit objective — advance out of pool play for the first time in the nation’s World Baseball Classic history. This is the sixth iteration of the WBC, with Team Japan winning three times (2006, 2009, 2023), the USA once, and the Dominican Republic once.
On the field in Carolina, those ambitions show in small rituals and concrete preparations. Naylor’s curated collection of Canadian hockey jerseys — “I don’t want to expose which ones I have just yet. This was one of them. I have, like, five more, all Canada hockey” — became a quiet emblem of the team’s attempt to transform club momentum and veteran stewardship into progress on the international stage.
Back at Estadio Roberto Clemente, the scene that opened this story is given new weight. The captain’s C on Naylor’s jersey, the delegation of roles by Whitt, and Soroka’s explicit nod to the Blue Jays’ influence all fold into a single question of consequence: where is the world baseball classic 2026 for Canada? For now, it is here — in a Puerto Rican ballpark, among jerseys and shared experience, and in a collective push to make history.
