BP absolutely loves baseball. You could see it all over his face as he scored that run.
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BP absolutely loves baseball. You could see it all over his face as he scored that run.
Just an awesome game tonight. WBC is slowly winning me over.
U-S-A! :usa:
320
yay USA wins and the Reds get Votto back. Good day
Netherlands beat Cuba 7-6 on a walk-off sac fly.
Wow, Netherlands blow a 2 run lead in the 5th, come back from 2 runs down in the 8th, and walk off in the 9th to advance.
Have found myself really enjoying these games and rooting for the USA. The Friday night loss was no fun. Taking down The Dominican will be TOUGH.
I've been watching most of the games and I've been having fun in doing so. The atmosphere in most of the games are fun and it looks like the players legitimately care.
USA gets Puerto Rico Tuesday night in Miami. Phillips vs. Molina renewed with country pride mixed in. I know they have pretty much gotten past everything but kind of cool.
Early March and I get to watch solid baseball? I'm in.
GL
One thing that has come out of the World Baseball Classic that I didn't quite realize before is how dominant the USA is at producing pitching. I had just assumed like almost every other position the world had caught up with producing baseball players. Even with all the big named pitchers not participating USA should still have by far the best staff.
Looking at it on a bigger scale. Going by fWAR over 2011 and 2012. 27 out of the top 30 starting pitchers are from USA. Never wouldve guessed that many. Seems like other countries do catch up some when talking bullpen arms. But starter wise the United States is still well ahead of everyone.
Adrian Gonzalez, born in America, hits a two run home run to beat the USA.
Jameson Taillon, born in Florida, starts for Canada against the USA.
A-Rod played for the American side in 2006 but switched to the Dominican side in 2009.
I have a hard time getting behind the WBC when Americans are playing against Americans but playing for different teams. I understand that if you had more stringent guidelines would make it difficult fielding some teams, but I would rather it be a more true competition.
Really surprised there were no suspensions from the Canada-Mexico brawl. Not so much for this WBC, but for future ones, there needs to be some enforcement of on-field behavior.
It took me a while, but I finally came to the realization that the WBC is not about competition. It's not meant to be the Olympics or even the World Cup. There is no real presumption of competitiveness underlying it from those who created it. Rather, it's merely a global marketing opportunity for the sport that leverages the power of nationalism. It's about spurring interest in Brazil, in China and in mainland Europe.
Perhaps someday there will be something closer to a world cup feel to the event. But as it stands, there's no need to seek purity and takes steps to make it somehow a higher level of competition with higher standards. Not suspending players doesn't really create some terrible incentive to act poorly and suspending them would simply lower interest in the event.
I'm not crazy about being able to switch teams, but even international soccer and basketball allow some of this players from one country to play for another so long as there is some connection to the "home" country.
The difference being that because the international games are so much more meaningful, they can enforce the rules requiring the players to stay on the same "country" from one championship to another.