HOUSTON (AP) — Warm up the espresso machine and chill the wine, Italy is heading to the World Baseball Classic semifinals.
The Azzurri continued their perfect WBC run with an 8-6 win over Puerto Rico Saturday to earn their first trip to the semifinals.
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Italy's Andrew Fischer celebrates after hitting a two-run double during the fourth inning of a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game against Puerto Rico, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Italy's Andrew Fischer celebrates after hitting a two-run double during the fourth inning of a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game against Puerto Rico, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Italy catcher JJ D'Orazio celebrates a victory over Puerto Rico following a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Members of team Italy celebrate a victory over Puerto Rico in a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
“It’s amazing,” Italy manager Francisco Cervelli said. “This is great. This is one of the best chapters of my life. It’s incredible. This group, it’s phenomenal.”
They advance to Miami to face defending champion Japan or Venezuela on Monday night.
Italy didn’t homer Saturday after hitting a dozen through its first four wins — and downing espresso shots after each dinger. But its offense still packed enough of a jolt to send the Puerto Ricans home after they had made the quarterfinals for a sixth time.
Just as they have after every victory in this tournament, Italy celebrated with celebratory bottles of wine in the clubhouse postgame. The bottles have gotten nicer with each victory, with the first ones costing around $20 and more than tripling in price since then.
“There were some special bottles of wine today,” first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino said with a smile.
Saturday’s victory came after Italy handed the United States a surprising 8-6 loss in pool play The Azzurri followed with a 9-1 defeat of Mexico that provided the help the Americans needed to reach the quarterfinals.
Cervelli and the players credited the win over the U.S. as the confidence boost this team needed in this history-making run.
“The key was the victory against USA,” Cervelli said. “Those guys beat one of the best teams in the world, best players in the world. Now they’re gonna believe.”
Italy’s success in this tournament is huge for a country in which baseball isn’t nearly as popular as it is in many of the countries competing in the WBC.
“I don’t think it would be hyperbole to say this is the best day in Italian baseball history,” Pasquantino said.
The team has received some criticism because most of the roster is comprised of Italian-Americans, many of whom have never even been to Italy. The players have heard that and brushed it off, saying getting a chance to represent Italy in this tournament has helped them grow closer to their heritage.
“I’m just trying to take in as much as I can because I know that there’s a lot of people that are upset that we represent Italy, being Italian-American, but I take so much pride in it because it is my roots,” Pasquantino said. “My family came over for a better life to America and, I honestly don’t have any issue representing those members of my family and it’s just super cool to be given this opportunity from these guys.”
Andrew Fischer, who drove in two runs in Saturday’s victory, grew up on the Jersey Shore and is fiercely proud of being from New Jersey and of his Italian heritage.
He’s so proud being from New Jersey that he has multiple tattoos on his left arm paying homage to the state. While the tattoos are meant to highlight his home state, prominently featured in that ink is one of the most famous Italian Americans of all: Frank Sinatra.
Fischer already felt close to his Italian roots before the WBC but says this experience has enhanced that feeling.
“Being here and representing it definitely has brought some light to it in my life,” he said.
Now these plucky players will try to keep their undefeated run going and continue to impress the people in the country they represent.
“The level of confidence it’s growing and growing and growing,” Cervelli said. “We've got to stay humble, concentrate and do what we know that’s it. Play our game.”
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Italy's Andrew Fischer celebrates after hitting a two-run double during the fourth inning of a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game against Puerto Rico, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Italy's Andrew Fischer celebrates after hitting a two-run double during the fourth inning of a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game against Puerto Rico, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Italy catcher JJ D'Orazio celebrates a victory over Puerto Rico following a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
Members of team Italy celebrate a victory over Puerto Rico in a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game, Saturday, March 14, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
HOUSTON (AP) — Artemis II’s astronauts closed out humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century with a Pacific splashdown on Friday, blazing new records near the moon with grace and joy.
It was a dramatic grand finale to a mission that revealed not only swaths of the lunar far side never seen before by human eyes, but a total solar eclipse and a parade of planets, most notably our own shimmering Earth against the endless black void of space.
With their flight now complete, the four astronauts have set NASA up for a moon landing by another crew in just two years and a full-blown moon base within the decade.
The triumphant moon-farers — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen — emerged from their bobbing capsule into the sunlight off the coast of San Diego.
In a scene reminiscent of NASA’s Apollo moonshots of yesteryear, military helicopters hoisted the astronauts one by one from an inflatable raft docked to the capsule, hauling them aboard for the short trip to the Navy’s awaiting recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha.
“These were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now, and I can’t imagine a better crew,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said from the recovery ship.
Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, made the entire plunge on automatic pilot. The lunar cruiser hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 33 — or 33 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since the 1960s and 1970s Apollo.
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the capsule became engulfed in red-hot plasma during peak heating and entered a planned communication blackout. All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that had to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry.
Watching the drama unfold nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away, hundreds of jubilant workers jammed Mission Control to celebrate the splashdown. Astronauts’ families huddled in a viewing room, where cheers erupted when the capsule emerged from its six-minute blackout and again at splashdown.
The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 36,170 feet (11,025 meters) per second — or 24,661 mph (39,668 kph) — just shy of the record before slowing to a 19 mph (30 kph) splashdown.
Until Artemis II, NASA’s fresh-from-the-moon homecomings starred only white male pilots. Intent on reflecting changes in society, NASA chose a diverse, multinational crew for its lunar comeback.
Koch became the first woman to fly to the moon, Glover the first Black astronaut and Hansen the first non-U.S. citizen, bursting Canada with pride. They laughed, cried and hugged all the way there and back, striving to take the entire world along with them.
Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn't land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13's distance record and marked the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when the crew reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then in the mission's most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.
During Monday's record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the moon's far side never seen before by the human eye along with a total solar eclipse. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8's first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our Blue Marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
“We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon, bringing them back safely and to set up for a series more," Isaacman said. "This is just the beginning.”
Isaacman greeted the astronauts with hugs as they headed from the helicopters to ship’s medical bay for routine checks. They walked by themselves, refusing the wheelchairs offered them.
Their moonshot drew global attention as well as star power, earning props from President Donald Trump; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; Britain's King Charles III; Ryan Gosling, star of the latest space flick “Project Hail Mary”; Scarlett Johansson of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner of TV’s original “Star Trek.”
Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems. In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, the toilet kept malfunctioning, but the astronauts shrugged it all off.
“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”
Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space and it’s a doozy.”
Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
The Artemis II astronauts' allegiance was to those future crews, Wiseman said.
“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
People wait for a glimpse of the return of NASA's Artemis II Friday, April 10, 2026, along the beach in Coronado, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
In this photo provided by NASA, the Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crewmembers aboard approaches the surface of the Pacific Ocean for splashdown off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)
In this photo provided by NASA, the Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crewmembers aboard approaches the surface of the Pacific Ocean for splashdown off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)
In this image from video provided by NASA, the Artemis II Orion capsule splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, on Friday, April 10, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this photo provided by NASA, U.S. Navy divers prepare to deploy in small boats from the well deck of USS John P. Murtha to recover Artemis II crew members NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist and NASA's Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)
In this image from video provided by NASA, the Artemis II Orion capsule, right, separates from the service module above the Earth in preparation for splash down in the Pacific Ocean. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew, counterclockwise from top left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover pose with eclipse viewers during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed the Moons curved limb during their journey around the far side of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed a bright portion of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew captured this view as the Earth sets behind the Moon during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
