Some Classic

So the United States, the country that invented and popularized baseball, could not even make it to the Semi-Finals of the First World Baseball Classic? It's true, but Team USA has nobody to blame but themselves. Untimely fielding errors. A lack of timely hitting. Two uncharestically off performances from Dontrelle Willis. The team was in trouble from day one.

Amazingly, one of the few things that I was really confused by early in the tournament was the sight of Ken Griffey, Jr. hitting 3rd. At least he hit over .300 and had three homers in the six games of the tournament.

Now, Major League Baseball gets a final four of Japan vs. South Korea, and Cuba vs. the Dominican Republic. Not exactly the ratings bonanza that Bud Selig hoped for.

Let's hope that by the time the next Classic rolls around in 2009, some simple changes are made, such as:

• Moving the tournament to November, so all players are in peak physical condition.
• Expanding the tournament to allow more Round-Robin Games. Either have two, eight-team divisions where all teams play each other once, or keep the current structure but have a double round-robin. The single round-robin led to the problems with tiebreakers.
• And tiebreakers also need to be fixed. The tiebreaking structure was byzantine, at best. Mexico eliminated itself by taking a 1-0 lead in the 5th inning last night; they could only have advanced to the semi-finals if they beat Team USA by the exact score of 3-0 in exactly 13 innings. It was ridiculous how complicated the tiebreakers were, especially considering baseball fans are accustomed to seeing a one-game playoff to break ties.
• Allow more games to be played outside of North America. It made sense for Team USA to host a pool in Arizona, for Japan to host a pool in Tokyo, and for Puerto Rico to host a pool in San Juan. I'm not so sold on how good it is for baseball that Australia, Italy, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic played in completely neutral Orlando. South Africa, Italy, Australia, and the Netherlands could just have easily played in their own pool, in one of those countries, creating more competitive games and brining the excitement of the tournament to these fans. It might not have been as much of a success finacially, but it would have done wonders to spread the game.

The WBC is a great idea in concept, and has been fun to watch. However, the timing (especially considering that the Semi-Finals and Finals are the same weekend as the first round of the NCAA Tournament) is suspect and needs to be adjusted if the event will ever truly become a mainstay of international baseball competition.