The World Baseball Classic - C
This event was a treat for any baseball fan. I personally had the chance to go and watch Korea vs. Japan at Anaheim. The game was very entertaining, and I never smelled so much kimchi, sushi, and dog in my life. Anyways I have no qualms with that game in and of itself as I was enjoying the atmosphere as much as I was enjoying the game. So why the average grade? It is in my opinion that this event was too biased for the U.S. team, who happened to lose anyways. I will go down and list the reasons why I believe so.
1) The way that they had the first set of pools was fine. What I do not understand is why North America was grouped with South Africa, probably the weakest team involved in the games. Can somebody seriously explain to me why South Africa was in the U.S. bracket? I understand that there are only 3 countries in North America, but why wasn't it Puerto Rico or Australia?
2) The second pool set was also unfair. The U.S. obtains a bye for the first round, and is pretty much intent on giving themselves a by in the 2nd round as well. In theory Japan and the U.S. were supposed to advance into the semis, but Korea pulled off an excellent run of 6 games and ended up in the semis. The U.S. just felt that they were good enough to beat everyone in a weaker pool and ended up losing to Mexico and Korea, but everyone knows that the U.S. was the favorite.
3) I really do not understand why in the semi-finals the same 2 teams that have competed against each other have to compete once again to reach the finals. It is much more fun to watch teams compete with other teams, especially if it is something between countries. Look up the the World Cup for instance. In the semis we had Korea vs Japan again for the 3rd time, and the Dominican Republic vs Cuba. We already saw these teams play each other, why not add more variety and let them play a team from the other bracket? It is because the U.S. officials who organized the event wanted the U.S. to face the weaker team to advance into the finals. Well that's my 2 cents.
One last thing. Team USA sucked, but Byung Hyun Kim is the worst pressure pitcher of all time.
1 comment:
Instead of going with a round robin tournament, I would have suggested a best of 3 series set up like the NCAA basketball tournament. In a one game playoff anything can happen, but in a 2 out of 3 series I think you will get a better show of who is better. Yes the US lost to Canada, but given a 3 game series I think they would have won the other 2. That way you would still play the same number of games (3 for each round) and get the real best matchup at the end. I will say that the Cuba vs. Dom Rep. game I watched was really boring, but the Korea vs. Japan game was awesome. I was rooting for Korea as they deserved to win having gone unbeaten beforehand, but alas they lost. I felt bad cause the guy in front of me looked like he was gonna cry
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