Saving the WBC from Itself

I’ve been a crank about the World Baseball Classic, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t watched. I like baseball, and extra preseason baseball with a little more intensity and a bunch of Dutchmen is OK with me. However, this tournament is still a joke and will continue to be until they make some well-needed changes.  I’m a helpful guy, so I’ll help the car salesman-turned-commissioner of baseball with his gift to the baseball world.

• Expand the tournament. Right now, we have 16 teams, and the talk is 24 teams by 2013. Fair enough. Let’s go to 24 teams.
• Stir the Pot. Average Attendance in Miami was only 16,000 or so. However, you could have sold Dolphin Stadium out and had lines of cars parked up and down Florida’s Turnpike champing at the bit to get in: Cuba. Who was the genius who didn’t see the benefit of pitting the United States and Venezuela against the pool that included Cuba in Miami?  You’ll see Americans and Team USA caring when confronting three irritating Latin American countries in the WBC. The Venezuelan fans booed pro-Hugo Chavez freak (and ex-White Sock) Magglio Ordonez for being pro-Hugo, but cheered the Venezuelans. I hear there are a few Cubans in South Florida who like Fidel Castro as much as they like getting punched in the mouth. Why waste this opportunity so the Cubans can eat more fish tacos at PETCO Park?
• More Fidel. Who doesn’t like a washed-up Commie still wearing fatigues and oppressing his people commenting on baseball? We have Richard Daley talking White Sox and Rod Blagojevich talking Cubs. Neither blog about it, though.  Fidel Castro does.
• Bring back Round Robin in Pool Play. How about six four-team pools, with each team playing each other three times each over nine days (no off days)?  From there, move to the next round, with two four-team pools with more round-robin action (each team playing each other three times each over nine days)? Let each team play every team in the pool; let even the bad teams (like South Africa and Panama which were gone early) get to taste more international competition. Let baseball be played the way it was intended.
• Best-of-five for Semis. Baseball is not a single-elimination sport. Best of five would create some drama and build some familiarity with these teams. It would also produce a worthy finalist.
• Best-of-seven for Finals. Why not afford an opportunity for this to go seven games? Baseball is a sport best played over time.
• Move this to either July (scrapping the All-Star Game) or December. Baseball can shut down the season for three weeks to play this and junk the All-Star Game allowing the WBC to be played in nothern locales, or it could play it in December in the Southern U.S., domes and points abroad. Either way, the WBC would be front and center. In December, college football is at a lull and pro football is just a once-a-week affair. In July, after Wimbledon passes, baseball is truly the only game in town. Plus, the players are in shape.
• National League Rules. No DH. Regular extra-inning rules (no Olympic, international competition crap about starting innings past the 12th with extra men on base). No pitch counts. Just good, old-fashioned baseball.
• No Mercy Rule. Kind of fits with the previous point, but yes, I did want to see just how many runs Team USA could have run up against South Africa at Scottsdale Stadium in 2006.

Here’s what’s wrong with the WBC:

• Game 6 of Pool Play. It’s a meaningless game. I suppose it’s to determine the pool “winner,” but how is the U.S. not the Pool Winner in Toronto when it beat Hugo’s All-Stars and Canada in the winner’s bracket? It was only after Venezuela beat Italy for the second time that it was able to vault from the loser’s bracket into the “pool championship” game.
• Too many rematches. Many of them occur in “Game 6.”  Japan played Korea twice in Tokyo and once in San Diego. Japan also played Cuba twice in San Diego. Venezuela and the U.S. played twice in Toronto and once in Miami. Two of the games (both won by Venezuela) were “Game 6.” Japan and Korea or Venezuela and the U.S. have the potential to meet one final time at Dodger Stadium.
• Davey Johnson. He managed the 1986 Mets. He’s obviously a Satanist.
• LaTroy Hawkins. Really? He’s the best set-up guy the United States has to offer?
• The Sports Calendar. There’s another event going on that I’m really more into right now.