Daily rants and opinions...because we're THAT bored.
by Spaen - Thursday, March 23
As far as my stance on the entire inagural World Baseball Classic, I think it's a good idea but a wrong time. I enjoyed staying up until the wee hours of the morning watching the zipperheads play. It was fun to watch the Dominican Republic play with all their studs...until they kinda stopped towards the end of the tournament. It even had some pretty good drama with the US trying to make it through to the semifinals. There were only two things that stopped it from being great. They were:
- March Madness: Everyone knows that March is the time of college basketball tournaments, and the race to the playoffs in the pro level. Spring training always sucks ass, so we normally never pay attention to baseball until the first week of April. This sudden change really just made the schedule too busy in March. The early start of NFL Europe really didn't help either.
- Barry Bonds: All this talk about #25 for the Giants is wearing thin on my patience. Instead of talking about the US getting blasted by Canada, we talked about that damn book giving "evidence" that Barry took steroids. Hey...isn't it funny that Barry is still hitting homeruns when it's extremely hard to take steroids nowadays? Until there is cold hard proof that I can see, and not stupid interviews by stupid people wanting him banished from the game, I will continue to enjoy watching Barry this season. Barry is not Pete Rose...yet anyway.
As for a better time to have the World Baseball Classic...December maybe? I know different holidays are observed by different religions...but at least the first 20 days of December would be decent. Plus, in case of possible injuries, they could have some time to heal up if they aren't too serious. Spring training would also not be so screwed up, and the MLB teams could have all their players. And December really doesn't have too much important on with the exception of the race to the playoffs in the NFL. You could try and schedule these games before college football bowl games start too.
First Round
vs Mexico W 2-0
vs Canada L 6-8
vs S Africa W 17-0 (5 in.)
Second Round
vs Japan W 4-3
vs Korea L 3-7
vs Mexico L 1-2
eliminated from playoffs
Now that's cleared up, let's take a look at the USA's games. As you can see, they didn't even make the semifinals, but they had an interesting run. It looked pretty good when they beat Mexico, at least for a first game...but then Canada hit. They poured on an 8-0 run that made them look like a laughingstock. Finally the US got on a surge of their own and came back to make it a game. Unfortunately, they had no more in the tank...thankfully Canada didn't either. Team USA was then put into a scenario where Mexico had to beat Canada by more than one run, and USA had to beat South Africa the next day to eliminate Canada from moving on. Mexico already clinched. As it turns out, Mexico blows the fuck out of Canada, showing how the US is in deep trouble in the WBC. They at least show they can beat the really bad teams...and they annihilate South Africa by 17 runs in 5 innings. That's first round action in any tournament for you.
So the second round comes, and you can feel that the US just doesn't have it. They got horribly lucky by beating Japan in the first game. What was horrible? The call made by the refs that I still really don't understand, but I'm pretty sure Japan got screwed. When Team USA players say it's a bad call even, you know it was bad. The US didn't have a chance at all against Korea, and they ended their tournament run like they started by playing Mexico...losing by a run.
It shouldn't be called the "World Baseball Classic"...right now, it's just the "World Baseball Tournament". Yes, a few things will have to be fixed, and I hope they have it at a different time, but it was a good start to something that should be around every year from now on. Maybe better TV exposure, and have all games available in English. The ratings will only get better.