http://tinyurl.com/atjxr7b
They held a World Golf Championship event in Miami this weekend. Donald
Trump hosted it, at the Trump Doral Trump National Trump Course he recently
purchased and plans to redesign by moving some tees back, replacing the sand
traps with diamonds and remodeling all the greens so they are shaped like his
head.
Anyway, Tiger Woods won this World Golf Championship. But nobody thinks this
makes him the world golf champion. A few weeks ago, Matt Kuchar won another
World Golf Championship event, the match play. But nobody calls Kuchar the
world's match-play golf champion. He is just the golfer who won an event with
that name. I assume he makes this distinction at dinner parties.
And this is the problem with the World Baseball Classic. It decides nothing.
I'm sure it's a fun event. I'm sure it means a lot to the players. I believe
my colleagues who say the atmosphere is electric. I'll take their word for
it, because I'm not watching.
An international event needs to have the best players on every team, or most
of them, and it has to matter intensely to those players. Otherwise it's not
a championship. It's an exhibition. It's a marketing opportunity.
I have nothing against exhibitions. Or marketing opportunities. If I ran
Major League Baseball, I'd stage the World Baseball Classic too, though first
I would cut the regular season to 154 games, make both leagues play under one
set of rules and do something stupid that I could blame on Bobby Valentine.
The World Baseball Classic is a way to "grow the game," so hey, keep growing
it.
But this is the USA pitching staff in the World Baseball Classic:
Jeremy Affeldt
Heath Bell
Mitchell Boggs
Steve Cishek
Tim Collins
Ross Detwiler
R.A. Dickey
Gio Gonzalez
Luke Gregorson
David Hernandez
Derek Holland
Craig Kimbrel
Glen Perkins
Vinnie Pestano
Ryan Vogelsong
There are some very good pitchers on that list -- even casual fans know
Dickey, Gonzalez and Vogelsong. But there is no Clayton Kershaw, no Justin
Verlander, no David Price, no Matt Cain. It is so far from the best American
pitching staff you could put together that we don't even need to discuss it
further. Anybody can see that, and of course that has an enormous impact on
who wins the thing. There is a reason Verlander is gunning for a $200 million
contract and Detwiler is not.
I don't fault those guys. They absolutely should skip the WBC. In an era when
we are so worried about workloads that the Washington Nationals shut down a
healthy young ace in the middle of a pennant race, guys like Kershaw would be
foolish to throw meaningful pitches right now. They need to be ready from
April to October, not in early March.
They can't risk their careers for an exhibition.
And as long as they don't pitch, it is an exhibition.
The World Baseball Classic does not determine which country has the best team
in the world. It doesn't even determine which country has the best players in
Florida right now.
Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips said, "It would have been embarrassing"
to lose to whoever the U.S. played and not advance to whatever the next round
is called. I understand. He feels like he is representing his country. He
cares. That's great.
But I would not have been embarrassed. I don't know any American who would
have been embarrassed. Even if you care madly about the concept of baseball
as America's game, you can't pretend Luke Gregorson is David Price. To the
average sports fan, this is like somebody got bored in spring training and
decided to play a pickup game to mix things up.
I don't see how that will ever change. Executives can't move the WBC to a
better time of year, because there is no better time. They can't hold it
every year because star participation would go down, not up. And they can't
get pitchers to change their minds, unless they come up with a way to make
pitchers really stupid.
So, enjoy the WBC, fellas. I'm sure it's cool to be a part of it, and go
ahead and market your bad selves. I'll see you when baseball season starts.
--
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