The World Baseball Classic has been the talk of Talk Radio over here, perhaps because the Knicks suck, and no one really cares about the Olympics or hockey. Anyway, the idea seems to me kind of fun -- players are grouped by country and play in a tournament of sixteen games or so. The fear is that someone will get hurt, and it does seem an irregular time to have it ... pitchers in particular are not in "game" shape in early March. And, also will not this interfere with Spring Training, especially those back-ups that will not play that much? It would seem that November or so might be a better time for this, especially since football is basically only a one day a week deal (putting aside MNF and I guess maybe Thursday by some reports).
There does seem to be a sense of unreality, which arose during the Olympics during hockey (Why do we let professionals play in the Olympics anyway? I thought it was for amateurs.), in which the "competitors" are really teammates in the U.S. artificially split up by nationality. Thus, even though the U.S. hockey team sorta of bombed -- perhaps because some of their best players are not Americans -- hockey fans could in effect still be happy with the winners. After all, they root for these players outside of the Olympics context. Thus, Pedro Martinez -- who seems not to be playing given his foot and such -- would be the "enemy" so to speak, while Derek Jeter would not, even if you are a "Mets" fan.
Now, surely, this will not be taken too seriously. Some cynically see it as merely a money making scheme. Well, sure, why not? The problem does arise that the players might get hurt. Also, it has the feel of a pick-up game in that they really do not have time to practice together as a team. This was suggested as a problem during the Olympics ... compare this to the days of the Miracle, in which the team played together for some time.
Finally, looking at the way the four groups (sixteen countries/teams) are split, it seems a bit strange. The problem appears to be the inclusion of those "baseball" countries of the Netherlands, Italy, South Africa, and Australia. There are Italian players and the Netherlands has connections to Latin America, so their inclusion makes some degree of sense. South Africa and Australia, less so. Also, other than perhaps travel concerns, why are Australia, Italy, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela grouped together? Putting South Africa with the three countries of North America might just be an "odd country out" deal.
Anyway, I saw part of a South Korea/Taiwan game last night. Not bad. There are various rules, such as a sixty-five pitch count limit (not used mid-batter), which should result in many three or so inning starts. Also, a mercy rule, but it's something like 10 or 15 runs, so if it actually kicks in, it will be a bit sad. And, we also have pre-season baseball. Any port in a storm, huh?