World Baseball Classic

TempPeck

2009 World Baseball Classsic starts tomorrow.

The 2009 event will feature the 16 nations above from around the globe.
Tokyo, Toronto, Mexico City and San Juan, Puerto Rico will host Round 1 games before Round 2 moves to the United States, with games in San Diego and Miami.
The semifinal games and the title game will be held in Dodgers Stadium on March 21-23.

http://www.espnamerica.com/portal/content/09WorldBaseballClassic

Any predictions ??????

zuutroy

In an event where the major goal is to not get injured, I struggle to see how anyone can give two hoots about it. Spring training on tour is all that it is. Frank Catalanotto played for Italy last time, despite having never even been there!

wyk

zuutroy wrote: »

In an event where the major goal is to not get injured, I struggle to see how anyone can give two hoots about it. Spring training on tour is all that it is. Frank Catalanotto played for Italy last time, despite having never even been there!

Oh come on. It is BASEBALL. You need to catch the Japan and S. Korea game. That was pure awesome. Unlike in MLB, we are seeing nationalism and pride take part. And to see these people do all they can for their countries, and the emotions and pitched battles(sry bout the pun), are simply inspiring. If I want to watch athletes trying to avoid injury, I'll turn it to European Football

WYK

zuutroy

wyk wrote: »

Oh come on. It is BASEBALL. You need to catch the Japan and S. Korea game. That was pure awesome. Unlike in MLB, we are seeing nationalism and pride take part. And to see these people do all they can for their countries, and the emotions and pitched battles(sry bout the pun), are simply inspiring. If I want to watch athletes trying to avoid injury, I'll turn it to European Football

WYK

Yeah I kinda changed my mind a bit when the Seattle A-Ball guy pitched out of a based loaded jam for Canada. He was seriously pumped. I still think the ML guys are kinda tentative though.

wyk

zuutroy wrote: »

In an event where the major goal is to not get injured, I struggle to see how anyone can give two hoots about it. Spring training on tour is all that it is. Frank Catalanotto played for Italy last time, despite having never even been there!

I forgot to add, Catalanotto was eligible for the Italian team the same way everyone in Europe is eligible for their teams, and for their national teams, for the most part:

A player is eligible to participate on a World Baseball Classic team if:

* The player is a citizen of the nation the team represents.
* The player is a permanent legal resident of the nation or territory the team represents.
* The player was born in the nation or territory the team represents.
* The player has one parent who is, or if deceased was, a citizen of the nation the team represents.
* The player has one parent who was born in the nation or territory the team represents.

I could join the Japanese team or the German team..er..if I had any skill...
Oh wait, I DO qualify for Germany!

WYK

Mad_Max

If you've been lucky enough to catch the netherland games on over the last two days you'd have changed your mind. Especially the game last nigth against the Dominicans. WOW! what a game. For a game that went 11 innings without a score it was a brilliant game.

And no-one can say the dominicans and all 23 or whatever MLB stars they have ($83million salary between them) did not care.

It's still a young event, I imagine the Football world cup wasn't the most popular event at the start and only had a few entries but look at it now. I think this could become a massive event in some years and maybe will take place at the end of the season so as all players will still be in shape.

MyPerfectCousin

Mad_Max wrote: »

It's still a young event, I imagine the Football world cup wasn't the most popular event at the start

And, the World Series wasn't taken seriously its first two years of existence. It was treated as a money making exhibition, and not "meaningful".

dingbat

The USA-Canada game was fantastic, and the Netherlands' two shock wins were just brilliant too.

I look at the WBC like the first soccer World Cup, where only a couple of countries gave a cr@p, but with time it could become something pretty amazing. Hope so anyway, because rooting for your country is better than rooting for laundry (hat tip Jerry Seinfeld...)

LuckyLloyd

Just watched a rerun of the Netherlands / Dominican Republic Round 1 elimination game there. Didn't know the final result (thought it was live as I was watching it ). Wow is all I can say. David eat your heart out. At least you had a slingshot son! :P

Mad_Max

Just after watching the united states against the netherlands in dolphin statdium and the attendance was patethic. There was max 5 thousand, there's more people at spring training games. It seems the only country in the classic that doesn't care about it is america.

The next event should be hosted in one of the other countries. Reward the real fans. Watching mexico and korea here and they have nearly filled petco park.

For a country of people that love to chant U-S-A at the drop of a hat they are ignorning their national side. However i'm sure if they make the final at dodger statdium will be full of the same hypocrits screaming U-S-A who think this classic is a waste of time.

Jhazon

As an avid baseball fan, I think the WBC is a great event and will only get better in time. Baseball has everything to gain if this event is a success. I think the time period is better in February and national rosters should be may well in advance with friendly matches in the "off" year of the event. Sure, the WBC will not match the audience of the World Cup but it can install national pride resulting in bringing in new fans (and prospects) to baseball.

jaysonia

looks like its going to be a Korea Japan Final.

Should be a good Final!

Jhazon

Venezuela looked terrible in their game against Korea. The asian teams play with more heart and appear to be enjoying themselves more.. which makes watching them enjoyable.

jaysonia

Korea Looked solid enough in the first few innings, Venezuela did play terrible and made far to many mistakes.
Have the japan V Usa Game recorded so going to watch that probably on wednesday, Will most likly have to record tonights game aswell

At the moment i'm favouring Korea!

ADTR

Japan retain the WBC title.