Brett's posting prompted me to make a few comments about the World Baseball Classic, before it goes away.
First of all, does anyone know if this is a yearly event or what? I hope so.
I watched the entire USA v Mexico game on the first day of the NCAA tourney. I never thought that could happen.
Cool things about WBC
Early Baseball Fix
Every game actually matters
Covered by mlb tv
All Stars
Get to finally root for players I hate, but that dominate
Not So cool things about WBC
We couldn't make the semi's in our own tournament
The only time Jeter doesn't show timely hitting is when I'm rooting for him
I have to celebrate when Chipper goes deep
Bad officiating -- I don't think major league umps would have missed as many calls, sad but true.
Japaneze lead the tourney in stolen bases... I thought stealing a base was considered 'dishonerable' in Japan baseball.
Americans don't seem to care as much as other countries
Nonstop people talking about how this tournament was dumb, and nobody watched.
Bud Selig
Weird (did I spell that right Matt?) things about WBC
Tiebreaker system -- when Mexico hit that homerun that got ruled not a homerun, and they were arguing -- at that point, them scoring a run eliminates them from the tournament. If they could have gone into the 13th inning tied 0-0, then hit a 3 run homer, they would have advanced.
The Netherlands (or whoever) are the team that pitched the no-hitter
Bud Selig
ESPN telivising early games, and then not telivising the USA game later that day.
Pitch counts
US with one of the higher batting averages, and lower run totals.
I think I've finally put all my thoughts on blog about this.
That would be all
Grandpa Simpson
5 comments:
You forgot to put under the not so cool things section how Vernon Wells grounded into the tournament ending double play. Nice V Dub, Bluejays style.
On the bright side, didn't Vernon Wells have the most walks for team USA? Overall, not a good tournament for him.
I believe the plan is every 3 years. So the next one is supposed to be in 2009. That seems about right to me.
The best part about the WBC was how all the sports reporters said it was stupid, but then have all come around, and have somehow been able to do so w/o admitting they were wrong. It's quite fascinating.
Plus, the pitch count is stupid. The managers are cautious enough about the players, they're not going to push anybody too hard. And its unfair for the other countries that are in the middle of their season and are perfectly able to go longer. It just makes the games seem more like an exibition and less meaningful. I think they'll change that for next time.
Plus, what's the deal with Mark Texiera going 0 for the tournament?
In a perfect world, they'd hold this thing during the all star break, but I'm sure owners won't go for that... it'd be nice to see players in top form.
There are still some reporters who pretend this is stupid. On the radio, one was saying how nobody watched it. I didn't see many games played in front of an empty stadium, and I was watching this instead of march madness. So saying nobody was watching is a bit of an exageration.
It's called, baseball fans watched it.
But it would be nicer if it didn't compete with March Madness. Pretty crappy timing with that one.
With the All-Star scenario it was only the Final 4 that would be played during the break so it only would add two or three days to the All-Star break.
I like how Steinbrenner didn't want his players getting hurt, but if they were in spring training they would even be playing more. Nice try Steinbrenner, he's probably just upset b/c he's probably losing money on spring training fans. So sad.
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