From the comments section.
Tournament is not stupid it is a great idea just awkwardly placed and poorly managed and promoted by MLB. They have great ideas but other leagues take them and run better with them.
I went to Spring Training 24 years straight starting in 1984 seeing Mets v Cards in the opener when both were in St. Pete. Was in clubhouse and on field that day and got a great amount of autographs and spring training was fun but it was real. The teams were down there for business and they played about 25 games in ST. he top prospects were there as well in addition a few invitees and organizational men. After the 1st couple of games you saw the team play and a few prospects or a walk on vet actually being put in game situations to see if they can make the team.
The past several years it has become a farse the play 30 or so games , every minor leaguer is in camp and plays most the games and most of them will never see AAA let alone MLB. The vets are entitled and wil not take even an hour bus trip to visiting game, even though they are home by 6. They limit access off field and on field to players because no one plays. Even when guys are sent to minor league camp they appear game after game in the major league games. People are buying tickets at MLB regular season prices and sometimes more for these games and you may wait all winter to see your team at a ST game in a visiting city and absolutley no player shows up. Did you see the line up for Nats a few days ago Mets?
To complicate this we have the pre mature games in last week of Feb. to accomodate the WBC. The U.S. pool does not play till March 7 . They plop the WBC smack into ST thus cannabilizing ST more than they already have with the indifference they show above . As you say watching its as if you are not ready to watch yet so in middle of winter. Enough anticipation has not pent up.
Why not start WBC late Feb into early march? The particpants can start ST 10 days early in prep for these games. As WBC games begin the rest of MLB then does ST and the exhibition games start say a day after WBC ends about the 8 or so of March. The WBC guys who were in final round take a couple of days off after WBC and then join for the exhibitions. They can get away with about 20 to 22 games if they actually played them for real instead of how the just play non factor players now..they can ave a cople extra intra squad games early during prep time if they need more work, and they do need more work because they skate thru ST coddling the MLB guys and they can get through6 innings in April. Many pitchers would go 8 or 9 in last week of ST in the past! So I see why you are a bit off on ST this…but it is still baseball and ilook at it but d/n want to peak to soon either. It beats football , hoops expecially the NCAA tournament and NHL any day!
Thanks for writing in Vincent.
Me? I think it’s stupid. This is a money grab, and from me they grabbed money. I’m a sucker for jerseys (I will have gone just shy of three days without buying a jersey when this posts 6am on Friday – unless I bought one last night) and I bought not one, not two but three USA jerseys because they look nice and they come in three colors. I am a dope. A fool. A sucker.
In terms of baseball games? I don’t care. I want David Wright safely under the care of the Mets trainers back in PSL. I don’t care about this tournament. If the USA wins, I don’t care. If they lose, I don’t care.
Maybe perhaps if they did this in November it would interest me. I’d be more interested in seeing if the World Series champ could beat the Japan Series champ. Or if the World Series Champ could beat the Japan All Stars or the Cuba All Stars or whatever. This tournament, not so much.
But MLB wants the sport to grow. I’m not sure if 6 people at a Brazil-China game adds anything, but they got $330 out of me. Who’s the bigger fool, the fool or the fool that buys the fool’s jerseys?
