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The World Baseball Classic was a pretty interesting March bonus. I didn’t go out of my way to watch very often, but I caught a few innings here and there, and thought the Netherlands-Dominican Republic shocker was the story of the tournament.

There’s a lot of tooth-gnashing going on about how to “improve” the WBC. I’m not sure it’s worth the energy. Here’s the deal: For the United States, the WBC is a nice pre-season diversion for players who want the honor of representing their country in international competition. It seems like a thing for very good players to do once or twice in their careers.

However, I don’t think it will ever be consider a top-of-the-charts event the way it seems to be for other countries. And that’s fine by me. If Japan and Korea want to spend a couple of months in preparation and bring the best of their best, that’s fine. If Italy wants Nick Punto, good luck to ‘em.

It’s cool with me  if the WBC means more to “them” than it does to “us.”

Anyway, I found myself rooting more for players than for country.

Was I the only one who wanted Justin Morneau to come through with a big hit for the Canadians in the WBC opener against the United States? Would I have wanted Jesse Crain to win a ninth-inning throwndown against Derek Jeter if that opportunity had come up? Heck, yeah. I would have rooted for the Twins ex-Twins prospect Alexander Smit to smoke a couple of American stars off the plate if he’s gotten the chance.

For whatever reason, it felt different than Olympic basketball and hockey (or World Cup soccer), where I root for “our” guys — the only exception being the 2004 Olympics when the US basketball team was too sloppy and casual to cheer for.

I liked the WBC. It was fun to watch players from around the world and I wouldn’t mind seeing Japan’s Yu Darvish in the Twins yuniform. (Note to Pohlads: Darvish would make a fine  gift to the people for the new ballpark.) I have a Canada baseball sweatshirt, a birthday gift from the wonderful Ms. Baseball, that may be my Opening Day attire at the Metrodome.  I can respect that other countries take the tournament more seriously than we do. I just don’t want to see people obsess about improving the United States’ presence.

Given a choice, it’s team above country on this one.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 9:40 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.