World Baseball Classic

As most of you know, I love baseball. I've written more than a few blogs over the years about why it is my favorite sport, as well as to express my love for the defending World Series champions, the Chicago White Sox.

I guess it should come as no surprise, since my family came from Taiwan, where baseball is the most popular sport. Although I did not realize there was a connection until recently, that my love for baseball was due to being Taiwanese (and not so much because it's a great sport to play and watch). I guess it's kind of like when Dave Chappelle realized that he loved fried chicken not because it tasted good, but because he was black.

Anyways, the new big thing this year has been the World Baseball Classic, set up by Bud Selig and the MLB offices. Supposed to be kind of like soccer's World Cup, except for baseball, I guess.

When I first heard about the WBC idea, and found out my beloved "Chinese Taipei" (Taiwan's "official" name in worldwide competition)* was going to be one of the 16 teams competing, I was excited. In part due to politics*, but also because it is a tiny island nation 1/4th the size of Illinois, Taiwan does not get to compete in these types of international events that often. So the rarity of the situation, combined with my love for baseball, peaked my attention for the WBC.

Unfortunately, after the following some of the first round of play, it has been a major disappointment in my mind. It's not just sour grapes because Taiwan got eliminated already, in case you're wondering. Here the main things that bothered me about the WBC so far:

1. Poor TV Coverage

Ok, so I don't expect the WBC to get the same kind of hype as the Olympics, or the NBA, College Basketball, etc. And I know that the games involving Taiwan are in Asia, many time zones away.

But take last Saturday as an example. The Taiwan vs. China game actually had a primetime start of 8 pm. I was at a sports bar downtown with some of the boys that night, a place that was filled with TV screens in every direction. Were any of them showing the WBC game?

The answer is no. Almost every single TV in the place was tuned to the Duke vs. UNC game. It turns out that we were at a UNC gathering of sorts, but still. I saw one TV turned to something other than Duke/UNC, and it was some high school basketball game. Might have even been a girls' basketball game, wouldn't that be a kick in the nuts.

Anyways, my real beef is with ESPN. Did you know that the Duke/UNC game was shown on three channels at the same time? They had the regular coverage on ESPN, the "above-the-rim" cam/JJ Brokeback cam on ESPN2, and the Cameron Crazies cam on ESPN U.

It's a cool idea, I fully admit, but come on. This isn't the freaking Superbowl. It's a regular season college basketball game, between two teams in the 3rd best conference this year, that had no impact on the conference standings! Yes, it's a big rivalry for those who happen to care. Yes, it ended up being an exciting game. Yes, it does make some impact on the eventual tournament seedings. But 3 channels at once to the same game??

Really, ESPN, you couldn't have bumped just one of the angles to show the WBC game? Turns out the Taiwan vs. China game was pushed to ESPN Deportes. If you don't know what that is, don't feel bad. Neither did any of the bartenders I asked to change the channel there. At one point I took it upon myself to go up to a TV and start scrolling through every single channel. Nope, couldn't find it.

Point is, if you want people to care about your precious World Baseball Classic, you better not make too hard for us to watch the games. I don't know about you, but to me, if you're at a sports bar and you can't find the channel, yes it's "too hard".

2. Half the teams are a joke

When you look at the teams involved, it's pretty ridiculous to see what countries got invited. Out of 16, maybe half deserve to be there. Since when do people care about baseball in Australia? Canada? China? Italy? South Africa?

(By the way, I know Canada just beat the US last night, so maybe that deflates my point a little. More on that later though.)

Whoever picked the teams to compete was really stretching it, to say the least. China's team has no major league players and is managed by Jim Lefebvre, don't know if it gets any sadder than that. The Netherlands team might have given China some competition for "most pathetic team" if they didn't happen to own the Dutch Antilles, thus allowing them to claim Andruw Jones. On Italy's team, the only recognizable name is Mike Piazza, an aging catcher who I don't think is even an Italian citizen.

Which brings up another problem, nobody seems to have set any guidelines for determining who plays for who? As much as I think A-Rod is a phony in general, why should he have had to decide what country to play for? It's the job of the tournament organizers to make the rules. How are we supposed to take the World Baseball Classic seriously, if players are allowed to flip flop and decide on a whim which country they want to "represent"?

3. It means nothing

This is the biggest problem with the WBC. First of all, to most of these players, these are nothing more than glorified spring training games. And anyone who watches sports, whether it be baseball, basketball, or football, knows that preseason games don't mean anything. For example, last season's White Sox finished in last place in preseason standings, but went on to win the World Series. In 1985, I think the Bears went 0-4 in the preseason before going on to become one of the best football teams in history.

Part of it is because the players aren't in full game shape yet. Some guys in baseball simply don't reach 100% until May or June.

More importantly, the games don't matter as much because many of the players don't give their 100% effort to begin with. If you're getting paid millions of dollars to play a sport for your MLB team, are you going to risk a career-ending injury diving for a line drive? Are you going to slide headfirst into home plate? In bottom of the 9th inning, will you reach back for that extra oomph to throw a 100 mph pitch, or play it safe and throw 92?

Then there's the players that flat out decide not to play, because it interferes with their MLB jobs. The Dominican is pretty well represented overall but even for them, Pedro Martinez pretty much blew them off. Team USA is missing Randy Johnson, Mark Buerhle, Roy Oswalt, Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter, and Barry Bonds, among others. The worst case might be the Japanese team - no Hideki Matsui, Kaz Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, or Kenji Johjima.

I'm not saying it's right to choose money over your country's pride. In this case, though, I can't say I would blame a player if they did. Because I don't think the WBC means jack when it comes to national pride.

See that's what I'm really questioning, is do we really think that a country's pride is at stake based on the results of the WBC? I mentioned Canada beating USA earlier - does anyone actually think this means Canada is better at baseball than the United States? Yeah right.

So if nothing really is at stake, how can they expect the players to take the games as seriously as the games in October? And if the players themselves don't take it seriously, why should fans?

*****

Before I stop complaining, I have to ask, who made up these 4-team "pools"? The Asia one makes sense, but that's about it. Canada, Mexico, United States... okay I see a North American pattern... but what's South Africa doing in there? And if you're going to stick the Asian teams together, then why is the Dominican Republic set apart from Cuba and Puerto Rico?

Which reminds me, isn't Puerto Rico as much a territory of US as Dutch Antilles is part of Netherlands? Why shouldn't Carlos Delgado, Pudge Rodriguez, and Javy Lopez be on team USA, just like Andruw Jones is on Netherlands? Oh wait sorry I forgot, your whole tournament is a sham and nobody set any rules that make sense. My bad.

Okay, okay, fine I admit it, so I am a little bitter that Taiwan got bounced in the first round. Why couldn't they put us in a pool with China, South Africa, and Italy? We could've definitely finished in the top 2 of that pool and advanced. No, we got stuck behind Japan and Korea where we had almost no chance. (By the way I think Korea could go far in this thing, carried by a strong pitching staff. I'm impressed so far.)

I'll tell you why the pools were the way they were - the people who made up the tournament set it up that way so they would get the results they wanted. They can't put team USA in a pool with other good teams, and risk having them get eliminated early (the joke may still be on them!). They can't put DR and Venezuela with Cuba and Puerto Rico, because they have to make sure all 4 of those teams make the later rounds. So you split them up and throw some cupcake teams in there, under the guise of making your tournament seem more "international" than it really is. Meanwhile, your arbitrary decisions only make it that much more obvious that the tournament is more about manufacturing hype, than it is about determining the world's best baseball country.

There are few things that bother me more, than when the purity of sports competition gets tainted by businessmen in suits. This may not be as bad as if the NFL changed its rules to favor a more popular team over another, or if the NBA fixed its draft lottery to give the big market teams the higher picks. But it's still something that undermines the credibility of the game.

Like I said before, if there were a legitimate rhyme or reason to the rules and set up of the tournament, I wouldn't be complaining. But there isn't. There's no consistent logic to determining what countries/territories should get their own team, to what players should play for which team, or to what teams should be seeded together in the same group.

As a baseball fan, I'll probably still watch what I can of the later rounds, and I would be thrilled if this WBC thing ends up becoming like soccer's World Cup someday in the future. But as it stands, I just don't see that happening, unless they make some sweeping changes.

*****

Jordan

On a more positive note, I don't know if it's just me, but I get goosebumps every time I see one of those new Jordan commercials. You know the one, where they show kids in different parts of the world playing basketball, and reenacting some of his most memorable highlights.

Here's a link to one of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUkXsLXGjEI. Only thing is one of the kids looks like Tracy Morgan (a.k.a. Brian Fellows a.k.a. Woodrow)

Maybe it's just the cheesy dramatic music, but those commercials just get me. Not like any of us needed a reminder, but how great is Michael Jordan? How cool do you have to be, to have a commercial with random kids pretending to be you, and have everyone immediately recognize that it's you. Just by watching the way you palm a ball, drive to the basket with your tongue hanging out, or fake a defender off before hitting a game winning shot.

If there was ever any doubt, things like these commercials have convinced me that there will never, ever be another Michael Jordan. Not Harold Minor, Shaq, Grant Hill, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, or Lebron James. Not Tiger Woods for that matter either. Some of those guys might be superstars in their own right, but they'll never come close to matching MJ's greatness.