The World Baseball Classic

Usually, I tend to not stray too much from Pirate related matters, but I felt that with the ending of the World Baseball Classic, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the tournament. First off, as many of you could have guessed, I am a huge fan of the tournament. I think that many fans who are fans of a certain breed are going to like the tournament no matter what.

As I have read it seems that many just plain do not like the classic and I find the arguments to be rather lame. Before the tournament started, there were complaints that the USA team was not filled with enough stars. These writers must not have paid attention the last time around, when the egos of all those stars made the team an embarrassment. Take a look at Japan or Korea, two teams that have played extremely well in the two Classics, they are teams, not All-Star teams. I applauded USA baseball for realizing their mistake.

The argument about the lack of USA stars brings yet another point, it seems to me that too many of the critics of the event are too worried about Team USA. Granted everyone wants or rather expects Team USA to be good, we really should be, but it seems that lost in that thinking is that there are other good teams out there. Some criticism of the event are really almost too nativistic in tone. If that is indeed the case, then these people missed a really great game in the finals between Japan and Korea. Really one of the better baseball games I have watched in sometime.

I do believe, as great as I think the tournament is, there are problems with it. Of course there are going to be, as they are still trying to figure it all out. One of the problems that need to be addressed are definitely the timing of the event. Currently in spring training, most major leaguers are not ready to play a tournament like this. Plus being in March, it is too much for sports fans to take as we are all preoccupied with the NCAA tournament. Johan Santana has advocated playing in November and Jayson Stark would like the finals the week of the All-Star game, both seem to me better ideas than in the spring.

Another improvement would be the actual scheduling of the tournament. There seemed to be many off days in the tournament, perhaps leading to a lot of the injuries that plagued Team USA. If the off days were meant to be able to show the games on TV, that too seemed to backfire during the week, as they would try to play three games in one evening, that is almost too much even for the biggest baseball fan.

Finally, while I criticized the critics who seem to be too USA focused, I believe that for the event to catch hold in America, Team USA needs to be a little better managed and marketed. The actual management of the team the past two years was a joke, it was like an All-Star game. As much respect as I have for Derek Jeter, Jimmy Rollins should have played every game at shortstop. The juggling of the players, due to spring training work needing to get done, has no place when the emphasis should be on winning. When that type of player switching is going on, it signals to American fans, this game is not important. That needs to change. While the WBC seemed to do a better job of selling this Classic, they need to find a way to sell it to Americans. Why should they watch? It is the perhaps the key question to how it will become a bigger success here in the States.

While it is not perfect, the WBC does what the Olympics could never do, make international baseball really interesting. The best professionals from around the world participate in this event, something they could not do in the Olympics. It really makes for very interesting baseball match ups, it is just something is a little off with it. Hopefully the kinks will get worked out, as I cannot wait for the next one. I just hope that others will tune in and realize what they have been missing.