The Real World Champions
Sit down, White Sox. The real champions of the world are here.
And it is the team from Japan.
In the first true tournament of professional baseball players (at least since I can remember), the two best teams played a one game championship. Japan defeated Cuba 10-6. Through the WBC, I've learned quite a bit about my beloved sport.
The Japanese do it better than we do. First, they play ball the right way. We think of last year's champs as fundamental baseball at its best. Not even close. Japanese baseball is about bunts and steals and timely hitting and upsetting the batter's rhythm. It's wonderful to watch them play. Japan lost three games in this tournament. Well, two, really, as that umpire call against the U.S. was about as questionable as a Belorussian election. Yet, they found a way to win when it mattered. That's clutch.
The Cubans do it better than we do. Then again, the Cubans have been playing baseball better since before I was born. In fact, in every international tournament since 1951, Cuba has come in first or second. That makes the Yankee and Brave streaks seem kind of boring, doesn't it? Cuba plays with passion, with a love of the sport that we simply do not have. We're too busy loading up on fried food and watching overly juiced monsters in helmets show boat when they make a tackle or catch a pass.
The Koreans do it better than we do. This one is the best surprise of all. Korea came into this tournament as an afterthought. Most people picked them to make it to the second round, but wouldn't factor much. Instead, they ran up the longest winning streak of the tournament, left with the best overall record, and can proudly call themselves winners. They can pitch. They can hit. They can run. They can field. And they whooped the American prima donnas pretty darn good in the process.
The Dominicans do it better than we do. Perhaps the Dominican team ended up being an even bigger disappointment than the American team. After all, they were the big favorites heading into the tournament. Losing wasn't supposed to happen. They lost twice, once against a team of players none of us had heard of before. Still, to see that passion, that pure love of the game of baseball, that the Dominican players all had was enough to convince me they were better than the Americans. As if being in the semis weren't enough.
Baseball is called America's national pastime. That is simply not true. It was, at one time. In the fifties and early sixties, when baseball ruled American, yes, it was the national pastime. But today, that title belongs to the far less romantic sports of football and NASCAR.
We're a much more impatient society today. We can't wait for the tensions of baseball. We want action (even though football actually has about the same amount of actual play action per game as baseball, the time clock gives it a false sense of being an action sport). We do not have attention spans for baseball anymore. We also don't have that love for the game that we used to. Sure, they are crazy about the Red Sox up in Boston, and St. Louis was, is and always will be the Cardinals' town. But even those places cannot compete with the passion that Tokyo or Havana now has for the game.
The romance is gone from American baseball. So, it seems, has the game itself.
And it is the team from Japan.
In the first true tournament of professional baseball players (at least since I can remember), the two best teams played a one game championship. Japan defeated Cuba 10-6. Through the WBC, I've learned quite a bit about my beloved sport.
The Japanese do it better than we do. First, they play ball the right way. We think of last year's champs as fundamental baseball at its best. Not even close. Japanese baseball is about bunts and steals and timely hitting and upsetting the batter's rhythm. It's wonderful to watch them play. Japan lost three games in this tournament. Well, two, really, as that umpire call against the U.S. was about as questionable as a Belorussian election. Yet, they found a way to win when it mattered. That's clutch.
The Cubans do it better than we do. Then again, the Cubans have been playing baseball better since before I was born. In fact, in every international tournament since 1951, Cuba has come in first or second. That makes the Yankee and Brave streaks seem kind of boring, doesn't it? Cuba plays with passion, with a love of the sport that we simply do not have. We're too busy loading up on fried food and watching overly juiced monsters in helmets show boat when they make a tackle or catch a pass.
The Koreans do it better than we do. This one is the best surprise of all. Korea came into this tournament as an afterthought. Most people picked them to make it to the second round, but wouldn't factor much. Instead, they ran up the longest winning streak of the tournament, left with the best overall record, and can proudly call themselves winners. They can pitch. They can hit. They can run. They can field. And they whooped the American prima donnas pretty darn good in the process.
The Dominicans do it better than we do. Perhaps the Dominican team ended up being an even bigger disappointment than the American team. After all, they were the big favorites heading into the tournament. Losing wasn't supposed to happen. They lost twice, once against a team of players none of us had heard of before. Still, to see that passion, that pure love of the game of baseball, that the Dominican players all had was enough to convince me they were better than the Americans. As if being in the semis weren't enough.
Baseball is called America's national pastime. That is simply not true. It was, at one time. In the fifties and early sixties, when baseball ruled American, yes, it was the national pastime. But today, that title belongs to the far less romantic sports of football and NASCAR.
We're a much more impatient society today. We can't wait for the tensions of baseball. We want action (even though football actually has about the same amount of actual play action per game as baseball, the time clock gives it a false sense of being an action sport). We do not have attention spans for baseball anymore. We also don't have that love for the game that we used to. Sure, they are crazy about the Red Sox up in Boston, and St. Louis was, is and always will be the Cardinals' town. But even those places cannot compete with the passion that Tokyo or Havana now has for the game.
The romance is gone from American baseball. So, it seems, has the game itself.
posted by E-Luv at 9:07 AM
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