WBrC in Cincinnati!

anyone? anyone? the WBC is all over. didn't know? you don't live in Japan. it was ridiculous. people all around the country, people who couldn't care less about baseball the other 51 weeks of the year were geeked for the WBC. it was pretty exciting. one thing that was funny, and apoc touched on this a bit on his show, was that students were pretty surprised when i told them that Americans don't care about it. i was asked by nearly every student (especially after the U.S. lost) who i was rooting for in the Japan x U.S. game. i told them that i was rooting for Japan because i like the players better, and because i think it's more important for Japanese people. Americans don't care. i also thought that it was a good thing that the U.S. lost because (i hope) it will embarrass them and (hopefully) make them take it more seriously next time. i think that if the U.S. had won either of the 1st 2 WBCs we would keep sending out the same tired old slobs like we did in basketball. until we got embarrassed and then got serious. hopefully, we'll get serious next time...
anyway, MLB is more important. let's see, over 130 years of history vs. 3...

although there were several (most) games that were unwatchable blowouts (there are fewer "called" games in little league!), there were also a few really good, classic games. the 2 best games would have to have been the 2nd match up of Holland and the Dominican Republic. a great game with great drama. also i gotta say the title game between Japan and Korea was one of the most exciting games I've ever seen. that being said, there need to be some changes... 1st: the double elimination format is stupid, at least for the entire tournament. what's wrong with a round robin format for the 1st couple rounds? it's good enough for the world cup. I'd also like to see Japan play someone other than Korea (5 times!) and Cuba. they were in the same groups as 2 teams they never played (Taiwan and Mexico). there's been talk of expanding the number of teams for the next WBC with play-in round(s) and i am down with this! why are there only 3 countries from the Caribbean? and one from South America? finally, don't ever again put 2nd round games in Dolphins Stadium! it's a freakin football stadium! it's built to hold 80,000 people and when you have a game between 2 teams from different countries in a country that doesn't care about the WBC to begin with, 78,000 empty seats doesn't look good on TV. how about letting another country hold the 2nd round? or how about all of it? at least keep the games in baseball stadiums...
by the way, no games were actually played in Cincinnati.