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Cubscore.com

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Is USA Taking the WBC Seriously?

by Cubscore.com
created March 19, 2009, last edited March 23, 2009
13
Vote

Everybody else is. In a recent article posted on Yahoo Sports, some of the decisions by the Team USA coaching, training, and management staff have come into question and rightly so!

Is Davey Johnson or perhaps we should call him, Davey Jones, really looking to sink USA's hopes by refusing to get help for his injury riddled roster? Say it ain't so? The article points out this could be a ruse to try to keep who they will call on a bit of a secret, let's hope.

-- Begin Tirade

I am just a fan, but I take pride in the WBC, I think it is absolutely fantastic and think we all need to get behind it so that ESPN will air all the games they originally commit to instead of preempting it for College Basketball. Nothing against College Hoops, but I want my baseball and am not fortunate enough to have the MLB Network.

My final comment is that for basketball, hockey, tennis, bowling, Nascar, Golf, and football fans, which may include many of us, ESPN is probably a fine choice for sports.

Deep breath. Ok, I guess I just wish I had MLBN, I am glad to see MLB taking nationally televising baseball games into their own hands. GO MLB for that!

-- End Tirade

Back to WBC.In any case here is a link so you can check it out yourself - article.

I want to see America at least try to win this thing (I believe the players on the field are trying, just that the management is being too tentative its efforts to support them). I do enjoy seeing how baseball has grown internationally and enjoy seeing the other countries compete and play good baseball. But honestly? How disrespectful is it to America, to the game and its fans, and to those other countries if America doesn't even try to win? And for what? To protect some high dollar contracts and big money players from getting injured doing the thing they are supposed to love and the rest of us would kill to be able to do? That is, play baseball for a living? I mean any kind of living, not necessarily multiple millions of dollars? These guys do get paid something for the WBC by the way, even if its is nothing huge by comparison.

Again I have no problem with the business that is baseball... but America should be baseball first and business later. Time to grow up! America needs to rediscover its love of innovation so that we might reap the benefits of bringing new technology and solutions to the entire world for a better life for all. Sports are an international peace offering in a world that is generally torn apart by war. The WBC maybe small, but like the Olympics and the other World Cups whose footsteps it follows, it is important and significant. America is a world leader and part of that includes putting up an honorable effort on the sports arenas we create, even if that means losing with honor. Having to forfeit because of contract issues or fear of injuries to a major leaguer is disshonoable, selfish and stupid. If it happens it will be a bigger embarrassment than Team USA accomplished in Olympic Basketball a couple of Olympic games ago when they couldn't cut through all the showboating to make their talent equal to superior fundamentals in a generally simple game. It doesn't matter who they get out there, they can be minor leaguers too for all it really matters, we only want who wants to play. But if they don't replace their injured roster players, it won't be because they couldn't find two people willing to play and try to win. Get DLee on the field and Longoria and whoever else is available and lets win this thing!

Go USA!

--- CubScore.com


Enable Comment Auto-Refresher
JuTMSY4Legend
238 days ago
Score 3+-
The WB...what?
Permalink | Reply
RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 1+-
http://en.wi...hampionships
Permalink
JuTMSY4Legend
238 days ago
Score 1+-
Wow, that takes place in my hometown too
Permalink
RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 1+-
American players don't have much to prove in the baseball world. Look at teams like Cuba and Japan, who have few or no Major Leaguers. This is a huge stage for them. For the Americans, they're in Spring Training. Look at the Dominicans, Venezuelans, Puerto Ricans. They have players who have played in a foreign country for most of their career. They're fiercely patriotic as representatives of their country in another land.


But you still get some players that care. Kevin Youkilis has been playing (and playing well) with a bad ankle for 2 or 3 games.
Permalink | Reply
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 1+-
Cuba doesn't have any MLB players for a tiny, insignificant reason called Fidel Castro. Once they are MLB players, then they are no longer Cuban players.

The problem with Team USA is not that good players don't want to play or are afraid to get hurt... Smart MLB teams don't want their good players to play. It's THAT simple. This is why there is no Scott Kazmir or Evan Longoria on Team USA, no Akinori Iwamura on Team Japan and no Grant Balfour on Team Australia, etc. Why hurt your team - and thus your bottom line - for an exhibition?

When you pay a guy millions of dollars to play during the summer, his patriotism, loyalty and thus his balls in a sling becomes the team with the color green - the team providing his paycheck.

I won't stop repeating it - This event won't matter until it's played in November AFTER all the top tier Pro leagues have ended.
Permalink
RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 0+-
Fidel who? Never heard of him.


</sarcasm>
Permalink
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 1+-
He's been dead for a while but a whole bunch of people who see him as a super-human/Religious Cult hero don't want the rest of the world to know it. Just like Kim Il Jong and that Osama Bin Laden fella... </not sarcasm>
Permalink
RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 1+-
fidel-castro.gif


"Give what back?"
Permalink
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 0+-
I'm all for endless Simpsons (or any other TV show) references but I cannot bring it upon myself to + them anymore. I can't justify giving credit to people for stealing someone else's joke - even if it was a TV Sitcom writer getting ripped off. But, I do enjoy the Simpsons. And any picture of Castro just makes me want to break into my humidor and deplete my stash. Oh yeah... I'm lying. I can't stand any TV show references that aren't Simpsons. Hello?!?!?! If I want to read TV scripts (I'm looking at you, JuT), I wouldn't be on the Internet, I'd either be fellating a producer on a casting couch or I'd be - get this - watching TV!
Permalink
RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 0+-
It was actually an allusion, not a joke.
Permalink
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 0+-
illusion? alusive illustration?

You don't own the copyright so I can't + it... Just my puny morals, that's all. And believe me, I WANT to + it...

Image:Simpsons.gif This user is a Simpsons fan.
Permalink
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 1+-
dammit... wrong box...
Image:Excellent.gif This user can quote directly from episodes
of the Simpsons
all day and all night long.
Permalink
JuTMSY4Legend
238 days ago
Score 1+-
you realize that 90% of simpsons jokes are actually ripoffs of other jokes...in fact, the simpsons made an episode about that...which is probably a ripoff of something else I'm guessing the outer limits...
Permalink
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score -1+-
I guess I have to realize it now. or at least 90% of what you said. Thanks!

Because I watch the Simpsons I actually have the glimpse of an idea about so many things that are common knowledge to most people drowning in their pop culture addiction.

Making fun of things is my favorite type of humor. Hell, I'm not sure I even know what sarcasm means anymore.
Permalink
Mvicks21JV Squad
238 days ago
Score 0+-
I think the players and coaches are taking in seriously. It's the fans that don't care. The attendance for these games are horrible. AAA games draw more people!

Wait until there is a huge star that gets injured in this thing and he is lost for the season. You will then start seeing GM's put clauses in contracts, saying they can't compete in the WBC.

I give the WBC on more time in 3 years, then I think that will be the end of it.
Permalink | Reply
RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score -1+-
I dunno. Compare home attendance for Marlins games with the attendance their stadium gets for WBC games.
Permalink
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
238 days ago
Score 1+-
Nice Donnie Baseball avatar.

I give it one more time until they get smart and move it to after the season so if a big star DOES get hurt, they can still recuperate for the next season. Even then, big stars on teams that go deep into the playoffs will be worn down/injured from the long season.

There will come a day when all of our precious North American sports leagues are globablized anyway and things like MLB and WBC won't have a distinctive line blurred between them. Same for NBA and as it almost is already - the NHL.

The NFL is the lone outlaw. And like tea partiers, gunslingers, biker gangs and crooked hedge fund managers (the only true red-blood American artisans) the NFL will be a long gone poof of dust in the wind of history.

The one constant in this world - change!
Permalink
Cubscore.comSoccer Kid
237 days ago
Score 0+-
I really don't see them moving it to after the season. There have also been talks of extending the all star break and having it then, but that will create more problems. You do that and the World Series will be going until December. I agree though, I think it should be right after the season. I'm not sure what kind of issues you would run into there, but you might have a lot of players that wouldn't want to play in it so soon after the season.. They just finished playing in 162+ games and are probably ready to head off to vacation or their homes. Many of them don't see much of their families during the season.
Permalink
Manny StilesMajor Leaguer
237 days ago
Score 0+-
The All-Star break here in the U.S. isn't at the same time as all of the other countries' pro leagues...

A guy coming off a 162 game season (or 150-whatever it is in Korea, Japan, and elsewhere) is in the groove and still on his game. A guy in March is getting ready to play, getting his legs, his eyes and his timing down...

I think we all agree it's a subpar product no matter how they shine it.
Permalink
Alex HolowczakHall of Famer
238 days ago
Score 0+-
Doesn't baseball have a World Championship already? And hasn't it had one governed internationally for 60 years or more? So, why doesn't MLB try to tie in their tournament with that, rather than start their own?
Permalink | Reply
JuTMSY4Legend
238 days ago
Score 1+-
I dunno anything about world championships but... wfc2gr8.jpg
Permalink
Sourire11Little Leaguer
235 days ago
Score 1+-
Evan Longoria is playing for Team USA...

I don't know about whether the management cares but I totally agree that the (USA) fans don't care. And ESPN showing college baseball rather than the WBC games pissed me off. I mean ok, it was on MLB but still. It's once every three years come on...

Well reading this post and the comments helped me understand how USA fans feel... though I dunno. I guess I just feel like... play for your country... do it for patriotism, do it for the love of the game...
Permalink | Reply
Cougar2000All-American
234 days ago
Score 0+-
I think that there's actually some interest. Granted, the attendance numbers are somewhat the same as a Marlins home game but I think that this thing will work.
Permalink | Reply
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Categories: Simpsons fans | Excellent Fans | Opinions | Opinions by User Cubscore.com | March 19, 2009 | March 2009 | Baseball Opinions | MLB Opinions | Chicago Cubs Opinions

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