Yes! Hell yes! At least that's what I was cheering while watching the 9th inning of Team USA's 6-5 victory over Puerto Rico on Tuesday night. Many of you may have been out at the bars because of St. Patrick's Day, but I was out for one specific reason: To watch the World Baseball Classic with a bunch of other baseball fanatics. However, I was apparently wrong in my assessment that people actually care about this damn thing. While the end of the game was tense, there was limited emotion from the crowd until David Wright's 2 RBI single that won the game for the States in the bottom of the 9th. Even then, there was limited applause that could barely be heard by my weakly-led "USA! USA!" chant.
Personally, I love the World Baseball Classic. Even though March may not be the best time to hold the event (I think late November / early December would be more beneficial, as long as the games were played in domes or warm weather locales), it's still a lot of fun. And even though our boy, Ryan Braun, is out until the Semis, it's always fun to root for the Red, White, and Blue.
With their win on Tuesday, the USA will face Venezuela for their group championship, which effectively means nothing. I'm not really sure yet about why the World Baseball Classic doesn't just hold a round robin style tournament instead of these convoluted schemes, but that's for another day. What we do know is that the US is guaranteed to advance to the Semi-Finals, something they couldn't pull off in 2006.
The U.S. will now face either Cuba, Japan, or Korea this weekend, and if they win they would advance to the finals next Monday. Even though it may not be a perfect system, and the fan support may be lacking (the stadium in Miami was all but empty for the US games), I love this thing and am so happy to see our country find success this time around.
You can enjoy your Irish holiday, but I had just as good of a time enjoying an American pastime on Tuesday night.
Elsewhere, the Crewers lost 7-5 to the Giants. Guess who was our Player of the Game though? Jeff Suppan! Check out the Box Score as to why.
2 comments:
Citizens of the US: Get on board with this! That game was awesome. Havings baseball that matters this time of year is great.
I agree this game had a cool ending but I just can't get into the WBC overall. I think it means more to other countries that lose all their best players to the MLB. It gives those countries a chance to be recognized.
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