Lars Nootbar Went To The WBC As A Normal Player And Came Back To Cardinals Camp As An International Hero

Lars Nootbar was NOT a household name when he left for the WBC a few weeks back. I'll be honest, I really only knew him because of his name and how great it is. He's a fine baseball player, but certainly not a star. That was until he won the World Baseball Classic with Team Japan. Now he's being welcomed back to Cardinals camp with an ovation fit for a king. People chanting his name, going nuts when he walks onto the field. Ask him a month ago if this is how he saw it playing out. What a few weeks for this guy, how can you not love him? When Nootbar left for the WBC he had about 50K followers on Instagram. Flash forward to today and he has.....

He's almost at 1 million followers, what a jump for the new Japanese legend. He is a new cult hero for them and it really is incredible. Again, he's really nothing special. Hit .214, 14 home runs, 40 driven in, stole four bases and had an OBP of .340. He's just an average player but now he's an average player with a WBC title and almost 1 million followers. It's incredible how much the legend of Lars has grown. He's now best friends with Shohei Ohtani too, how sick is that?

He's a leader of a nation practically

The guy is a legit superstar now. He will never pay for another beer in Japan, that is for sure. Such an awesome story for him and his family. He represented Japan because his mother and two of his brothers were born there. I bet he never thought he'd be recognized like this for his performance with the team during this run. A team full of studs and he became a cult hero for them. I bet the St. Louis crowd goes nuts for him on Opening Day too, even if he did have a hand in the USA losing. Lars Nootbar went from role player to international star, what a crazy sentence.