As we leave the WBC behind (good) – some mail came in through a Mets Police posting on Bleacher Report. Saturday afternoon seemed like a good time to catch up.
Danny Perez writes:
ah yes, american ignorance towards international competition continues. and as most cotinue to live in a bubble they call america, the rest of the world will continue to catch up and pass us in the sport we call ours, baseball, until we can wake up and embrace a true international competition which will only make baseball better in the big picture.
until good ole team USA proves it, we will continue to be second fiddle to the real asian champions. but it’s cool, because our good ole boys definatley took it more seriously this time around as opposed to 2006, and will continue to do so until team usa eventually and rightfully wins this tourney.
japan vs korea will not be exciting to many people, especially americans, and it’s not their faults! too bad team usa, and venezuela, shit the bed in their last games. usa vs venezela or venezuela vs japan, or team usa vs korea, would have been a more exciting final match for the westerners.
haters will hate, wbc is here to stay..
He’s right. I will hate, and it is here to stay.
Setay writes:
As much as I’d like to see the WBC catch-on, it has the distinct disadvantage of being a competition between countries. While this is a great concept based on the Olympics and World Cup, when the average American doesn’t watch soccer and couldn’t name three Olympians or even the leaders of Canada and Mexico, it’s not surprising that sporting events focused on foreign countries fall flat on their face. Hell, you can barely get Americans to pay attention to hockey. The answer isn’t to make the WBC compete with football (both NFL and NCAA), but teach us geography (is no one else embarrassed that a larger percentage of Japanese can find the US and Canada on a world map than Americans?).
Profile the countries playing and their teams, nominate of a couple stars (give them Beckham status), or even have them play in smaller cities where marketing would be cheaper and the local population would be thrilled to have the attention and would certainly show. But, simply hoping that people are craving baseball enough at the beginning of March isn’t going to work. Their forgetting that baseball is losing popularity in the states in the first place.
As much as I’d like to see the WBC catch-on, it has the distinct disadvantage of being a competition between countries. While this is a great concept based on the Olympics and World Cup, when the average American doesn’t watch soccer and couldn’t name three Olympians or even the leaders of Canada and Mexico, it’s not surprising that sporting events focused on foreign countries fall flat on their face. Hell, you can barely get Americans to pay attention to hockey. The answer isn’t to make the WBC compete with football (both NFL and NCAA), but teach us geography (is no one else embarrassed that a larger percentage of Japanese can find the US and Canada on a world map than Americans?).
Profile the countries playing and their teams, nominate of a couple stars (give them Beckham status), or even have them play in smaller cities where marketing would be cheaper and the local population would be thrilled to have the attention and would certainly show. But, simply hoping that people are craving baseball enough at the beginning of March isn’t going to work. Their forgetting that baseball is losing popularity in the states in the first place.
Orange King says:
The World Cup wasn’t taken very seriously the first few times out either, for much the same reasons the WBC hasn’t been. It does take time to build these things. Right now, I still enjoy it as a fun event, even if it doesn’t have as much juice as it should. I’ve seen enough Spring Training injuries not to worry about players getting hurt in the WBC.
The best part about this post is that I’m not the only person I know who is excited for this game tonight, so I assumed the title was serious.
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