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A thing is meaningful if people give it meaning - it's not a mechanically-derived property.
Also, ALL tournaments have "wildly disparate goals, efforts, and dynamics at play."
In 2013, similarly, the primary goal for the Astros is to develop and evaluate the group of under-talented players they have, and if the team wins the thing under those constraints, great.
This sounds exactly like someone who hasn't seen a minute of the WBC, and is being very selective in what information they read. Sure, managers are rotating through guys who aren't fully ready for everyday play. But if you saw even one shot of the Dominican bench as they were coming back against Italy, you would laugh at the idea that the primary goal was anything but winning.
On the other hand, not all major leaguers agree that the tournament is not bogus. Russell Martin said the following. And note the bolded part which highlights an absurdity with the tournament:
Ray (RDP) Posted: March 13, 2013 at 05:29 PM (#4387868)
[ Ignored Comment ]
Doesn't appear to.
Well, 27. The Marlins don't even pretend to compete anymore.
I think that this is a page for YR to come to the thread. The Marlins have no intention of winning a championship, they have every intention of collecting a profit. Pirates in the past were the same way. If a championship year happens, then great, but they aren't going to go out of their way to make that happen, if it means cutting their profits to only a few million.
I think that is why he listed 28, now that I think of it, there are 30 teams, and according to Ray 29(28+ Astros) are trying to win a championship(eventually)
I always notice, if I use something other than my home computer or my phone, where I auto log-in, that the site is a lot louder, and then I log in and it gets so much more pleasant.
No 28 + Astros + Indians = 30
The Astros have the exact same goal as the Indians as the other 28 teams:
Glanced over the Indians part.. :)
I do think he is being naive though, sure some teams want to win a championship, but other teams seem to be very content doing whatever it is they are doing, and collecting profits and waiting out to see if they get a lucky year or two where everything lines up and then they can go for it. (See Pirates, Royals, Twins etc.)
You both may be wrong, with Ray more likely of the two of you to be so. Cal Griffith's primary goal was simply to stay at the table. To be able to continue to own a major league franchise. That may also be Jim Crane's primary goal. Assuming it isn't is erroneous.
If that's not your claim, then I invite you to identify the differences.
No the claim is that major league teams have disparate goals, just like the various WBC participants.
Or the Browns and both Philadelphia teams during the '40s.
I think there is no question that NPB is closer to MLB than the KHL is to the NHL or EuroLeague is to the NBA. In fact, one of the things the WBC has shown me is how much talent is outside of MLB.
Are you leaving out hockey, or counting the KHL as a significant rival league?
I do agree with this. There's very little for the Americans to play for. They know they're the best and the WBC isn't going to change that. It's a bit like what I imagine Canadian hockey fans felt before 1972, though I don't really see an analogous Summit Series happening.
In what way are they disparate? Please list the ways, since apparently nobody agreed with my listing.
Do you really believe this?
A wbc teams goal is to win the tournament. A major league team goals(acknowledging that various owners have different level of priorities) is to eventually win a world series title, while acknowledging which years they are competitive and not wasting money. Add in that the MLB teams ultimate goal is to make money, and that being competitive year in year out is one of the ways to be profitable, another way to be profitable is to spend no money and collect revenue sharing.
Except for the American team.
Here's my reasoning on that part... if I'm watching "my" team's spring training game, it may not matter, and it may not be the highest quality of baseball, but I get to see some prospects that I'm interested in and wouldn't otherwise get a look at, and I get to see how the players I'm going to be rooting for all season look. If I'm watching a WBC game, the quality of play will be better, but I care less about the individual players.
There's another factor that I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned though... maybe it's just that none of us really want to admit it. When I'm watching and following a MLB season, there are two things I'm enjoying, the games themselves and the statistics. (I don't live in my parents' basement, and I really do watch games, I just like the numbers too.) A short tournament in which the teams don't even play the same number of games and even the teams that play the most games don't play enough to generate a meaningful sample size loses something for me. It's still fun, it just can't hold my interest the way a MLB season can.
I've been thinking along these lines a lot lately, and I've come to the conclusion that I want to get to know players better. I've been spending the last few months writing brief comments on every player that's had a significant career since 1990, more as a memory exercise than for anyone to read them. I'm coming to realize that far too many are just a series of stats to me, if they didn't play for the Jays, or particularly if they played in the NL. So I'm going to try a project this year of picking a different series every weekend and following the games with a specific focus on three or four players each time. Sort of like scouting reports, but not so much evaluating their abilities so much as getting to know them as players.
One thing I haven't heard mentioned anywhere is that the pitch count limits actually contribute to making the WBC more like "real" baseball despite the weird tournament format. Without pitch count limits, if you had Sabathia and vintage Randy Johnson on your otherwise mediocre squad, you'd be an odds-on favorite in any game, but with pitch limits you have to go to your bench at some point. Each individual game is a little more like a three-game series with the pitch count in effect.
EDIT: to get my pronouns in the right places
Dude, you're creeping me out.
fixed
To the extent of "writing brief comments"?
Uh, no.
Shinnosuke Abe, captain of Team Japan and last year's MVP of the Central League, is their DH in this tournament isnstead of their catcher, because he is recovering from a knee injury. This page notes that he had a shot in his knee on March 2 to help him be able to play.
Another horrible aspect. The byproduct of this is that it in effect rigs the games to make the talent level of the teams appear closer when it's really not.
I would? Are people just making things up now?
Unlike the real international competitions, its money-grubbing, cliquish beginnings occurred after you were born. The third modern Olympics were the St. Louis games, an enormous disaster that occurred entirely because St. Louis threatened to have their own Olympics if Chicago got it (that was otherwise a noble sporting event for the sake of sport.)
10 years from now there will be full-fledged, BTF-lurking baseball fans who were born after the first WBC. I hope they enjoy it even more than I do.
Yeah. That's been going on a while. Back in 2011, someone started making up that the season was over and that the Red Sox had made the playoffs and spouted it off every day like it was true.
Here in China, things are different. I was here for the WBC in 2009 as well, and can assure each of you that nobody even knows China fielded a WBC team. There is no Chinese language media coverage at all, not even a blip on CCTV-5 News, not even a replay broadcast of one of Team China's losses at 3 AM. I mean, good heavens, CCTV-5 News reports on how chess players from China do in international competition.
MLB has a long way to go here if they want to get even a fraction of the population interested. It's not going to be as easy as the inroads that the NBA made here. After all, basketball was played in China throughout the Mao era (for example, there's a basketball scene in "The Story of Lei Feng," an ultra-propagandist 1964 cult classic), whereas baseball was banned outright.
I think some of that has to do with baseball's association with Japanese imperialism. I don't know what baseball was like in China before the mid-1930s, unfortunately -- nor do I know where to look for information. I do know that teams in Manchukuo competed in the Japanese high school tournament during that time (in fact, I think a team from Dalian actually won once), but I don't know very many details.
Personally, I think baseball would be wiser to develop the sport more fully in South Korea and Taiwan, and try to make inroads in Europe before expending too many resources on the mystical China market. Let things develop gradually in China, and work harder on places where you already have a foothold.
Look at the lack of success the NFL has had in China. I remember seeing NFL promotional commercials on television here way back in 2006, when I first came to China. Still, there is no American football coverage anywhere -- not even the Super Bowl (unless you have a fancy hotel cable package with the ESPN / StarSports channels, which pretty much means you're a foreigner). I don't know what NFL China's budget is, but I would be really surprised if it had any actual return on investment.
EDIT: One more thing. I'm upset that I can't watch any of the games online. I remember watching the 2009 WBC final live through MLB.TV. The new deal requires me to have a US cable subscription that includes the MLB Network -- kind of hard to do while residing in a foreign country. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, the games are broadcast on basic cable.
Anyway, I've loved the WBC so far. I wasn't a huge fan at first, but the idea grew on me, and I caught the US-Japan game at dodger stadium in 2009, and it was a great experience. I was totally hooked. USA lost, but I got to see Ichiro and Matsuzaka play live (as an NL fan, the only time, for either, now I can tell my grandkids), and the ancient japanese dude next to me was talking some awesome smack (i was probably the only white guy in the section), and it was just fun. USA lost, badly, but none of them looked like they were mailing it in. This year, it's been a real joy actually being able to root FOR ryan braun, brandon phillips, jimmy rollins, etc (and it's also been awesome seeing minor league washouts strike 'em out). I had to decide who I was going to root for on a number of occasions- the DR, since I've done some things there, Puerto Rico, because of yadi and beltran, Italy, since I'm kind of a mutt, the netherlands against Cuba, twice, on principle, etc.
Anyway, I'm totally looking forward to the games in SF next week. Not sure if I'll be able to go, since it looks like $500 for a pair of decent seats, but that's a different issue.
CPBL was on the brink of extinction this off season, so I think some things can improve. also, the actual common spread of the game is not nearly as high as you'd guess, if like 60-70% boys played at least some little league in the US, that figure would be more like 6-7% in Taiwan.
Korea have similar issue, Japan not quiet as bad, the problem is that starting right from little league everything is school team, so only really athletic kids gets to play at all. so if your wondering why there appears to be a huge disparity of competitiveness between Taiwan's little league and grownups, that's the answer, they literally kill the chicken to get the egg so to speak. I never got a chance to play in Taiwan (though I did live in the states a couple years and play little league, but i'm like well below average in terms of coordination and athleticism ) until I got to college where we actually had a field in our school (well sometimes, it turns into a river once every couple years.) and we can form department teams, it was only then I actually seriously learned how to hit a baseball and I'm actually pretty good at it (relative to my athleticism anyway). This kind of story is true across the country, every boy probably played some hoops in school, but very very few gets to play baseball starting young. and that's the super ironic thing, since basketball is something where our physics more realistically limit our ability to compete internationally, but baseball? not so much.
It doesn't help that Taiwan's basically the most densely populated country on earth by a BIG margin (it's about the same as Banghelesh, until you realize that over half of Taiwan is actually uninhabitable mountains.) so even getting a baseball field is difficult. not to mention that since most parents either work to their death or has no money, that doesn't exactly make forming little leagues on our own a likely option (IIRC only a few really wealthy suburbs have that.)
The best possible thing on a policy basis that could happen to Taiwan for baseball? ban elementary school baseball competition permanently. we'll never NEVER take a serious step forward as long as we're serious contender for Williamsport, as counter intuitive as that may sound.
A. it basically exclude most potential talent basis right off the bat, since we can probably agree that not all future great players are obviously already great at age 10-12. not to mention the general selection bias would hurt kids who either grows slower or who might have baseball skill potential not clearly evident in his athleticism.
B. more importantly, it excludes a very large portion of the population from really participating in baseball, yeah everyone knows Wang AFTER he became famous. but the "casual" fans of Taiwan isn't the same as the once in the US. As I pointed out in a previous post elsewhere, there is an EXCEPTIONALLY high rate of relatives in the CPBL, almost everyone is someone else's cousin or brother, that should already speak volume on how limited Taiwan's actual pool of player is, we're not a big country, but our population is still the size of Texas, it participation are distributed evenly, there is no way you should have that many cousin / brothers in a group of some 150 players in a population of 24 million.
If your already excluding most of the population from participating in the sports, is it really a huge surprise that attendence is bad? and actually surpassed by an upstart basketball league (that , to be frank, suck badly, Taiwan is at least a second tier baseball country, they're like a 10th tier basketball one. our basketball team in international competition suck almost as much as our soccer team, and we hardly play soccer! hell half of that basketball league was my high school classmate, they're certainly well above your average mortals, but the sad truth is you probably find plenty of pickup basketball team in the US that can beat them.)
The early high attendance were smokes and mirror due to Taiwan's lack of access to foreign media at that point, and recent success in international competition, once those things changed, it evaporated quickly, the gambling thing only made a bad situation worse , it didn't really cause it, in fact, you can say it's the other way around. the fundamentally flawed baseball situation in Taiwan caused the gambling issue.
the MLB attendance won't change much if team USA wins it all or if they somehow got eliminated by team Italy. But Taiwan's basically relying on sometimes doing well enough in these competition to revive small spurts of interest.
End of rant
This is a good point. This makes it seem more like the All Star game than a regular baseball game, and I can't stand the all star game.
This argument is stupid. A reliever is likely better than CC the 3rd time through the order anyway.
Let's see if baseball can wrangle an endorsement out of Pope Francis that can match the one that Pope Pius XII gave to basketball:
Picture
The games aren't even played under the rules of baseball. Please. Enough.
Anthony Rizzo, "Italian." Nick Punto, "Italian." A pitch limit.
It simply doesn't get more jerry-rigged than that.
Most of the arguments I've seen for why it's not a legitimate event ring false to me, however. I'm receptive to annoyance with the pitch count thing. Not so much on "questionable nationalities" (don't like how ITA/ESP "overdo" it - but this is hardly unique to the WBC). The different goals thing is complete BS (does no one here watch college sports).
***
Thanks RollingWave - very illuminating. I thought (naively) that the CPBL's troubles were a function of gambling and relative disinterest in ongoing local sport (if that makes sense - so natives competing overseas or national competitions were one thing, but local leagues something else). I knew about the high incidence of relatives but didn't put two and two together - your explanation makes sense.
In your opinion, what's the short-to-mid term prognosis for pro ball in Taiwan?
To be fair I probably wouldn't like the WBC even if this wasn't the case. I think the main reason is that there is far too much randomness in a single game of baseball and I have no rooting interest. Hell I barely care about the world series if the Cardinals aren't in it.
There is a difference between not being interested in it, and actively against it. It seems there are people on here who have a mission in life, to bag on the concept and the execution of the WBC. I just don't get what is the purpose of tearing it down. I think that the college world series and little league world series are jokes but I wouldn't disparage the mere existence of them.
It is what it is. An attempt to create a baseball comparable to the world cup or the Olympics. It's in the best interest of the WBC for the U.S. team to not be a powerhouse(which coincides with the goals of MLB)so that other teams can feel competitive. It took the Olympics several tries before it was taken seriously world wide, this is not something that you start and expect to be perfect out of the box, or even after the 3rd try.
I always like to point to my brother who isn't baseball fan at all, and he fell in love with Ichiro in the first WBC and didn't even know that he was already a major league ballplayer. (He told me, he thinks Ichiro could play in the majors)
I don't need a rooting interest - the tournament provides an opportunity to see cool players playing games that, in many case, have been pretty exciting. If you're a foreign/indy/minor league junkie, as I am to varying degrees - the WBC is great.
You can't make it up.
I haven't given the WBC more than a passing thought in years, if ever. The concept was a bankrupt idea from the start, and it's played out exactly as predicted. But this thread is the most I've ever commented on it. And far from it being a "mission in life" to tear it down (please do grow up), I commented because of the remarks made by people at the start of the thread wherein they expressed confusion over why more people weren't interested in it. Then my comments were commented on, and I responded, etc. That's kind of how discussions work.
But if we're pretending we understand the motives of people, I submit that the people protecting the WBC as they would a retarded member of their family seem odd to me. I don't get what that's about, other than perhaps as a defense mechanism arising out of the need to feel that they're watching something worth watching. The baseball season doesn't start until April, and there's no reason to pretend that it has.
Like I said earlier, it perplexes me that a baseball fan wouldn't enjoy baseball. You clearly don't like the WBC, that's fine, but it just seems odd to me.
If I'm walking in central park I'll often stop to watch a softball game or little league game. I've been to spring training games. I have played organized baseball or softball for 20+ years. I have played non-organized baseball or softball whenever I can. I go to major league games and minor league games a few times a year. I watch it on tv occasionally (not as much as I used to). I watch as many playoff games as I can. I love baseball. I just don't like when people pimp something as something it's not, and then act all "Why isn't everyone interested in this?" And then jump down someone's throat after they answer the question. (Not that you have done this, Jose, but others have.)
There are also a kazillion college hoops games at this time of the year that are the equivalent of October baseball. There are also NBA and NHL games. There are also (for me, at least) some of the greatest films of all time showing on my favorite movie channel. Many of these films may not be shown again for many years, if ever.
And this is only the commercial entertainment options, never mind little things like work and family. Even if I cared a little bit more about the WBC, it's competing with much more interesting options for my attention. It's not the World Series, it's not the playoffs, it's not a division race, it's not my favorite team, and it's not even the Rockies vs. the Astros. It's basically a slightly better version of the X-Games or the Olympics. The product isn't necessarily all that bad, but there's zero rooting interest.
Quite right. No MLB team would ever put a pitch limit or innings limit on one of its top players.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx's comment to a woman with 10 kids "I like my cigar but I take it out of my mouth once in a while". I happen to enjoy the rhythm of the year with MLB with the hot stove period, Spring Training, the long, leisurely first 4/5 of the season, the pennant chase and then the post-season. By the time the season is done, I'm ready for the break of the hot stove league again. Read a lot more books, watch some other sports half-heartedly. That Spring Training corresponds to the season of rebirth is one of those magical correlations. I once got great feedback from my fellow students in a speech class on this topic. One woman told me that she still didn't like baseball but she now understood how someone could.
I'm the same with gardening. As much as I like planting, tending, watching nature's miracles, harvesting, eating!!!, by mid-fall, I'm ready to shut it down. I take care of the leaves in November and December (no global warming? Hah, the leaf cycle is a good 3 weeks later than it was when I first owned a house). Then I shut it down for 3 months. Now I'm getting excited that it's near lettuce, broccoli and spinach planting time, and that it's about time to order some mushroom soil and leaf mulch for the summer.
But I'm not compelled to trash the WBC. :)
Pitch limits in MLB are not rules handed down by the league, and when instituted by teams are to further the goals of the team instituting the pitch limit, to win a championship now or later.
Pitch limits in the WBC are rules handed down by the league and run counter to the team's goal to win the tournament.
People are just flat arguing dishonestly now.
(And we saw what happened when the Nationals put an innings limit on a pitcher while also contending for the championship. People were extremely critical.)
I think it would be more important for Chien-Ming Wang or some other Taiwanese or Taiwan-American players to be heavily involved the way Dave Nilsson was in Australia.
just say: this isn't mlb, i only like mlb (as far as high level baseball is concerned)
or games involving the specific team(s) i root for
or edmundo's explanation from 162
or andy's 160.
or lots of other arguments.
yours, ray, come off (whether intended to or not) as "this is a fake product and something is wrong with you if you like it". understandably, that'll meet resistance from those that disagree.
I suggest that the owners collectively (and not individual players) make the investment because it's exactly that - an investment that will take time to pay off. Maybe they'll lose millions every year, but that's a drop in the bucket when it's split 30 ways. If they subsidize Australian, Taiwanese, Italian, and Dutch baseball to the tune of $2.5M per country per year, that's $300K per owner. That's ~60% of an MLB minimum salary for one player. That's a fraction of what they spend on player development, and long-term, seems fairly likely to noticeably increase the international player pool *and* international fan base.
It's entirely possible I'm dead wrong about the extent to which this would help the game grow overseas, but I'll say this: Whatever it is they've done to expand international interest over the past half-century, it hasn't worked.
If local heroes don't sell baseball in another country, just rely on fashion and marketing. Heck, there are plenty of people in the United States who wear a baseball cap or jersey just because it looks cool, not that they have any interest in baseball at all.
just say: this isn't mlb
Exactly. One-day, limited-overs cricket would be a good analogy. Such matches are simply different from Test cricket, and require different team strategies, and might favor one team over another set up better for a five-day match. And you might like one but not the other.
I certainly like One-Day Limited-Overs cricket more than Test Match cricket when my insane friend says "Let's play a match of XBOX cricket all the way through!"
Though, while I'm not an experienced cricket watcher, I'd much rather watch test match cricket. Perhaps not from beginning to end, but there's something about the strategy involved that I find fascinating. When to stop and let the other guys have a go, and when to give up on winning and try to cling on to life long enough to get the draw.
Yessssssss!!! :-)
I'm the same with gardening. As much as I like planting, tending, watching nature's miracles, harvesting, eating!!!, by mid-fall, I'm ready to shut it down. I take care of the leaves in November and December (no global warming? Hah, the leaf cycle is a good 3 weeks later than it was when I first owned a house). Then I shut it down for 3 months. Now I'm getting excited that it's near lettuce, broccoli and spinach planting time, and that it's about time to order some mushroom soil and leaf mulch for the summer.
But I'm not compelled to trash the WBC. :)
How very sane.
Because of clear weather, I've gotten a good deal of early-spring weeding already done. Once I'm back from Spring Training, it'll be time to refresh the soil in the raised beds, and in early April plant the tomatoes and peppers and beans.
You should try backpacking. By day 3 you're ready for a shower, a comfy couch or bed, and a big 'ol plate of carbs -- I usually go for Indian food.
As for the WBC, I find it hard to get that worked up either way. I'm sure there are people in Japan and maybe the Dutch Antilles that for them, this is their super bowl, their world series. That's kinda neat. As a White Sox and MLB fan it's not really my thing. Fandom is organic, I'll root like hell for the UMSNT because the World Cup has a huge history behind it and as a kid in 1992 I was hooked. Maybe in 30 years the WBC will be that way for kids that grew up with it in the aughts.
I guess it's getting better to an extend, because one major changes is that unlike the early 90s when the league was formed, today there are a lot more legitimately big companies in Taiwan, of the 4 teams currently in the league, only the legendary BROTHERS ELEPHANTS , are ran by small time owners. (Brothers hotel is a single hotel in Taipei. ) , but when the league started everyone was small time owners.
The four original team and owners were
Brothers Elephants : owners of a single hotel
Uni Lion : they gotten a lot bigger over the last 20 years due to their epic management of 7-11, but back then they were a small food company.
Wei Chuan Dragon : another small food company (most famous for local milk brands), think of them as Proctor and Gambles only much smaller. though since they left the league they also expanded due to their presence in China.
MERCURIES Tiger : Owner of a small department store chain that since collapsed, though they manage to hang around in other fields.
You can look at the Brothers Elephant in particular to see why there's a problem, The Hotel, ran by the Hong brothers (hence the origin of the name) their stated capitalization is only around 5 million USD , and how much money have they lost on running the team in the last 20 years? about 15 million USD. (though they do make more than that from the hotel in reality, however it is clear that most of their earning is going down the black hole of the team.)
It is a devious cycle, guys like the Hong Brothers are clearly committed to baseball, but they really don't have enough capital to sustain more than small losses on the team over the short term, and end up forcing to cut cost or limit cost to run a team, (and set up CBA rules that basically prevent wealthier owners to spend a lot more.) which in turn lower quality of players you can hire and also give a lot more incentives to fix games etc... which obviously just drive the league into an ever deeper hole.
However, in the last 20 years, a lot more companies that could be ranked as world class have popped up in Taiwan, which give us some hope that we'll be able to finally sufficently capitalize the league to the point where incentives to fix games are greatly reduced and serious marketing / development money can be spent. The league resisted for YEARS of setting up a minor league team because of cost consideration. only giving in in recent couple years. (recently, Foxconn have expressed interest in the league as well. as have HTC . if EDA can turn the league around a bit there are now far more legitimate ownership groups ready.)
There have been outcries from fans asking the Hong family to sell their team, but the truth is if they didn't hang on over the last decade the leagues' probably toast already, so it's a big dillema. the EDA group brought the team from a company that makes fertilizer for only Taiwanese farmers.
The Little league front have seen SOME improvement in the last decade, though not nearly enough IMHO. but at least now adays we're not just looking for overgrown 12-13 year olds to win in Williamsport and forget about everyone else. we've also built more fields, though most are built outside the dikes around Taiwan's rivers (since that's the only place where you have large fields that can't be used for much else.) which obviouly have their problems since maintance cost is high due to them getting flooded pretty much every other year. particularly during seasons where little league would be most ideal...
EDA group is very interesting since they would really be the first time a group that has major stake in the entertainment industry have ran a team. (most owners had been either manufacturers / construction companies or in a few cases, small banks.) so they seem to be more realistically equipped to change on the marketing in the league works.
So I don't know, I guess there are enough positives to remain hopeful, the Manny signing may end up being something of a historic moment looking back 10 years from now if the CPBL improves. at least it signify a new era where Owners really are willing (and capable) of breaking the bank .
How do you think Taiwan's basketball team compares to the CBA (the mainland league)? I didn't get many chances to watch Taiwanese basketball, but I've been following the CBA off and on, even after the Liaoning team got knocked out of the playoffs the other week (we're living in Liaoning Province right now). I read something in the local sports paper indicating that the CBA champions will play against the champions of Taiwan's league in the future, starting in 2014 or 2015 or something like that.
We went over to EDA World when we were in Kaohsiung. It wasn't bad, though there really wasn't much for our kids to do. They're 3 and 1 1/2, which probably explains it.
Or to be a pessimist, it could be like the Cosmos buying Pele and Giorgio Chinaglia.
Also, in 20 years after the 8th WBC, I fully expect that there will be some tradition established around the game.
I live in Taoyuan in the North.
The CBA is much better than Taiwan's SBL at the moment and for the forseeable future by a pretty wide margin, the best CBA players are probably better than the worst NBA players (hell many of them WERE NBA players, or went back to being NBA players later on.) the best SBL players play adequtely in the CBA (and there has only been a couple of them who can be reasonably described as good. inclduing my former classmate who's playing for Yao Ming's Shark this guy basically our best Center, and he essentially played himself out of the starter's job this year on the Sharks. (granted, Center is probably China's best position by a mile. the good thing about having the worlds' largest population is that you also have by far the largest collection of 7 footers. )
There is talks of merging the 2 league from what I've heard, but obviously this little slight political issue you may have heard about complicates matter ;)
If you haven't thought about it and don't watch it, how do you know how it 'played out?'
can't we do both?
That really made your day, didn't it.
Ray is the one that's played out.
If this was really ten times as important as the regular season, as everyone except (Ray) is claiming
Hm? Who's saying that?
The anti-WBC people are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And the World Baseball Classic is a damn good tournament. A 'perfect' WBC would probably:
*Be during the actual baseball season, perhaps around the All-Star break;
*Run at least a month, with each of the teams playing at least ten games or more, to allow the best-quality teams to rise to the top. Baseball's not like soccer or football, where they play once a week;
*Strongly encourage the best players to play. (National pride? Lots o' money? Guarantee their MLB contracts if they get hurt? All the redheads they can carry?)
None of these things are realistic...at the moment. So instead, we've got a lot of really good ballplayers playing for their countries during spring training. And that's more than enough for me.
In this case, the guy making a joke that you missed.
"Let's not bicker and argue over who beaned who..."
Which one did you go home with?
The American League plays baseball with the wrong rules so pitch count limits don't really bother me. I'd watch it if I could without changing to an entirely different way of receiving television.
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