World Baseball Classic

[edinatlanta]

The U.S. v Canada game was pretty good, watching baseball in Latin America is awesome.

WBC=Baseball on TV in Spring=win for all.

 

[chorse123]

It's an improvement over televised spring training, I guess. I watched some of US/Venezuela yesterday and was happy to see them win.

 

[MetroStyles]

It's fun to watch but it's not that meaningful.

a) The team's have rules on how much they can use players (obviously a good call, but still it diminishes its prestige)

b) Baseball is the most random sport of all major sports. The best teams wins a lower % of the time than the best team in other sports. Therefore the semifinal and final format, in which its a single-elimination tournament, is really a crap shoot.

 

[edinatlanta]

What I don't get is that the WBC has good baseball. You have near all star caliber teams. You get to see some of the best players playing for a longer time than you normally would. Why don't Americans like this more?

 

[MetroStyles]

Originally Posted by edinatlanta

What I don't get is that the WBC has good baseball. You have near all star caliber teams. You get to see some of the best players playing for a longer time than you normally would. Why don't Americans like this more?

Because it is essentially an exhibition.

 

[briancl]

Originally Posted by edinatlanta

What I don't get is that the WBC has good baseball. You have near all star caliber teams. You get to see some of the best players playing for a longer time than you normally would. Why don't Americans like this more?

And Americans are typically very unfamiliar with the other half of the roster for every team (or the entire roster for teams like Italy, Netherlands, China, etc. It's a nice respite from spring training and early-season baseball, but its just not the same as late-season or post-season baseball.

I was watching last night, and in the middle of the USA game, I switched the channel. My girlfriend was shocked because I am a huge baseball fan, and I am typically glued to the games I watch.

 

[phreak]

i dont like the name "World Baseball Classic"

the "classic" part is marsupialed. Its like when the founders of the wbc were coming up with a name in 2006 (lol), they tried to give reverence to the name so it would have credibility.

y couldnt they come up with a more fitting name, like the "world series" ... o wait

 

[edinatlanta]

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

Because it is essentially an exhibition.

Meh. I got no problem with playing decent baseball for the sake of playing baseball.

 

[MetroStyles]

Originally Posted by edinatlanta

Meh. I got no problem with playing decent baseball for the sake of playing baseball.

Me neither. I enjoy watching it. I'm just saying most of America doesn't care because it is an exhibition that proves nothing (no one really thinks Japan is better than the US or the DR despite the last WBC's result).

 

[phildo]

I saw the USA vs Canada game at the skydome and the ~42,000 fans were pretty into it. Was a close game and fun to watch.

 

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by edinatlanta

Why don't Americans like this more?

Because it adds to an already long season, and it increases the possibility of your best players getting hurt before the season starts.

 

[Dragon]

Originally Posted by edinatlanta

What I don't get is that the WBC has good baseball. You have near all star caliber teams. You get to see some of the best players playing for a longer time than you normally would. Why don't Americans like this more?

because they know the Americans are going to lose again

 

[MetroStyles]

I hope the Mets can out-bid the Yankees for Yu Darvish next season...

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

no one really thinks Japan is better than the US or the DR despite the last WBC's result.

Um...

 

[Douglas]

The short format of the tournament, and its intermittent nature, just don't fit with the natural rhythms of the sport.

Baseball is a game of consistency and endurance, played out over six months of grinding, numbing boredom. No one moment in a season is all that important, but the sum total of all those seemingly boring and insignificant moments adds up to a season. The drama and the tension build throughout the season, and then the playoffs are exciting because of all the work that it took to get there, and then the all-or-nothing style with which those final games are played.

Baseball is a game where you don't watch every game in a team's season. You sort of read about how they're doing, you spend a few Saturday afternoons lazing in the bleachers soaking in the sun and some BP, and it's a long-term diversion. It's like checking in on a simmering pot. You can leave the room for 30 minutes and nothing's really lost. The reward comes later.

The short spasm of baseball that is the WBC lacks the time to really build any drama. The players are not really in form yet. They're not used to playing together. National allegiances (for non-South or Central Americans) are pretty low... I couldn't tell you who should be on the Canadian team vs. the US team. And since the tournament is so short and just held every 4 years, there's just not enough time to build any allegiance like you do when you live somewhere and grow an affinity for the local team, where the players are in the news and on the street.