World Baseball Classic Thoughts

Watching David Wright hit the walk-off double to send the Americans to the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic made me realize that Opening Day is close and got me real excited for baseball again. While that game got me excited it also provided me to think that the World Baseball Classic is a tournament that needs some tweaking for it to really be good.

Scheduling is the biggest thing that needs to be changed because now the U.S. is facing a Venezuela team that hasn’t lost in this pool to determine the pool winner. What doesn’t make sense from this is that the U.S. has already lost a game in this round so if the Americans were to win then both teams would have the same record but the US would be the pool winner. Venezuela should be the pool winner and USA the pool runner-up. This tournament also needs a lot less off days as well. This is still spring training for most of the players and they’re being asked to give it all that they have for a game and then take a day off then put it all back out there to get another day off. As a result of this scheduling it leaves players susceptible to injuries. The number of off-days should be limited and eliminate the games that prove to be meaningless.

The other gripe that I have about the Classic is that Puerto Rico is its own country for the tournament. If Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory then the players from that territory should be eligible for the USA team. This is most certainly my pride as an American coming out but if a territory is part of the United States, the U.S. should be able to use the people from that country to make a team for an international tournament. If Puerto Rico and the United States combined squads it would leave Davey Johnson with more options and not have him contemplating having to forfeit games due to the number of injuries.

Overall, this tournament has won me over. I was not the biggest fan of this back in 2006 and wasn’t too excited heading into it this season. But with the success of the United States and the chance to see international talent, this tournament is growing on me. I think some of the American players who declined their invite to this team will reconsider for the next WBC if they saw tonight’s game and if the United States wins it all. The emotion that was displayed after that game was like October baseball and a feeling that any ballplayer wants to be a part of. This has the potential to be a great thing especially if Olympic Baseball is gone forever; it just needs a few adjustments.