MIAMI — For many years, I maintained that the best crowd I had ever been in was a World Baseball Classic semifinal game between Japan and Puerto Rico exactly 13 years ago today. It was an energy that made me realize that fans outside of the United States understood how much joy baseball is supposed to have.

Writing this from the aux press box of the World Baseball Classic at loanDepot Park and watching Team Venezuela upset Team Japan, then beat Team Italy to make it to the final to face Team USA is highlighting how different the crowd is from Venezuelan fans and US fans. Monday night during the semifinal when Team Venezuela scored the go ahead run was the first time I’d ever seen french fries flying through the air in celebration.

I’ve never seen an American crowd celebrate like that, not even in the one World Series game I attended as a fan. Why are Americans this way? Why do Americans treat baseball in such a serious manner when it could be a fiesta?

Maybe it’s because Team USA treats the World Baseball Classic like they’re the troops. Team USA manager Mark DeRosa explicitly stated that they were playing for the military. Team Italy was out here celebrating with dugout espresso and Team USA wants to honor the military industrial complex when the US has so much more culture to offer than that.

For the troops! Not this country, or those who reside within these made up lines, but the military.

I’m the great-grandchild and grandchild of veterans who survived the Bataan Death March. The Philippines was a US territory at the time, meaning that they served in the US military. Knowing how much trauma that was inflicted upon my grandfather and great-grandfather through a horrific war crime and knowing that my paternal family’s province felt its effects for years after gives me a different perspective on how the US treats the military and its veterans. Veterans, such as those Bruce Springsteen sang about in the constantly misinterpreted “Born In The USA,” who don’t always receive the necessary services that they deserve once returning from deployment. Veterans who aren’t necessarily the ones thought of when people say they’re celebrating the troops.

It’s called the military industrial complex for a reason. In a country that glorifies going to war and war itself, it’s not lost on me that the final is between the US and Venezuela. The United States, the constant oppressor, the aggressor, represented on the field with cosplaying the troops, yet somehow failing its way upwards to the final because of a manager who couldn’t seem to count during pool play.

In so many ways, it’s an accurate reflection of American arrogance and American exceptionalism. It’s easy to root against Team USA — just about every American friend I have is rooting hard for Team Venezuela tonight — because those that make up what the country actually is isn’t represented in this encapsulation of the culture. It’s what this country was founded on and there’s no escaping it, even in sports.