Come anticipate the World Baseball Classic with me

best part about tonight's US/Venezuela game: Jimmy Rollins getting announced as "Henry Rollins".
i shit you not.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/worldclassic2009/news/story?id=3972122

A senior Major League Baseball official said that tournament organizers are expecting a potentially hostile crowd in Miami this weekend. And that's not the only drama happening with Team Venezuela.

looooooooove it

who in NYC wants WBC FAP

Peavy cold gettin' shellacked.

mrcy ruled!

With CHARACTER GUYS

Japan/Cuba has been pretty fun to watch so far. 3-0 Japan

Sutcliffe is such a douche. Team Netherlands is showing a little excitement and he says they're grandstanding. Pshhhhhhh.

good luck usa

best part of wbc is cuba's jerseys

Good thing Jeter (0 for 3) pouted his way into the lineup.

lol at Newsday account of Rollins plays Jeter "may not have had the range" to make.

Chipper & Pedroia out w/ aches, boohoo

Sutcliffe applauded Rollins picking up Pedroia's slack -- how about the one who actually played 2B, went 3-for-3 with a triple and double, and walked twice?

can someone please post the current deets of who's up, who's down, who has a chance, for those of us who would rather drive forks into their eyes than navigate the WBC site

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/worldclassic2009/news/story?id=3836483

Wish I could find a print story on the conversation between Pudge and Pudge's son after Sulbaran (Netherlands pitcher in the Reds' system) struck out Pudge (told by Thorne last night, I think).

Paraphrasing:

Pudge's son: Remember how you said that high school pitchers can't really pitch yet -- they're not ready for anything?

Pudge: Yes, I remember that.

Pudge's son: That pitcher who struck you out -- he was in high school last year. My school played against his school.

thanks morbs

japan shutting out cuba 6-0 is shocking!

Petco Park was less than half full with an announced crowd of 20,179.

this makes me incredibly sad

but it was DICE-K! xp

Semis and final on Sat-Mon eves oughta be good for one FAP, NY.

"I knew Cuba was a good team, but particularly there was nothing I was too worried about. While I was doing the warming up, did I look so fierce? I thought I had a smile on my face, did I not?"

—Team Japan starter Daisuke Matsuzaka

does cuba have any particular rep as a patient/impatient group of hitters? i only caught the tail end of daisuke's start but damn they were hacking, and he loves lineups like that.

He looked pretty great against them three years ago too.

Cubans tend to play 'conservative' ie fewer walks, more bunting

This dude Cespedes for Cuba is a monster.

Darvish tonight.

Maglio Ordoñez explica el por qué él este 15 de febrero dirá SÍ a la enmienda

First 15 seconds of this are more entertaining:

all this mid-game bunting w/ 0 outs is WACK

PUR for puerto rico makes me lolz

also MLBTV calling the fake to third fake to first gayballs play as the Sutcliffe whereas YES calls it the Nelson. Fite.

could MLB get some more sponsors? CALLAHAN, CALLAHAN

PAST A DIVING JETER

WRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT

Matt Vasgersian said he was having "a hard time picking the Player of the Game." Can you imagine if Jeter had 3 hits including the game-winner? They'd name the trophy after him.

Good game.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9348188/Team-USA-needs-Rollins,-not-Jeter,-at-short

"past a diving Jeter" a+++++ username

at least jetes failings are getting some mainstream media traction instead of handwringing by BBP/HBT et al. I mean it's all valid handwringing but Joey from White Plains KNOWS WHAT HE SEES...

maybe Joey will see the Yanks signing him as a part-time DH for 2011.

(thx Tracer, I owe you a drink when you're Stateside)

yeah, we've conquered the 'range = 0' battle and now we have to move to the 'value as a bat lim --> 0' battle. Whose who are better @ maths, feel free to correct that limit value.

Joe Sheehan doesn't like double-elimination:

Are we all comfortable with this?

Puerto Rico beats the U.S. The U.S. beats Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico loses to Venezuela and doesn’t play the Netherlands. The U.S. beats the Netherlands and doesn’t play Venezuela. The U.S. advances.

If I’m the only one bugged by this, fine. I am bugged by it, however, and I at least want to put it out there.

.....

I understand the desire to play it out on the field, but a double-elimination format falls down when the quality of competition is as unequal as it is in these groups. There is a massive difference between playing Cuba and playing South Africa, the difference between a 30% chance of winning a game and a 99.9% chance.

Alex doesn't really care what Joe Sheehan likes.

well, the commenters point out the other doable options seem worse.

the wbc just seems like something where it's better to enjoy it for what it is than try to make it what it can never possibly be.

Yeah I think it's great. My only complaint is that the MLB players seem pretty hampered by the time when it's being played, but there isn't much you can do about that.

damn, the final on Monday doesn't start til 9:30 ET. What a time to start thinkin' of the in-park fans...

Not that I've gone to BP today or thought this out much, but...

When I am elected WBC commissioner/dictator:

Four pools of four teams play round-robin -- so, three games played by each team. Team with best record advances. Tiebreaker goes to team that won head-to-head. (Two games played at each location daily; round over in six days.)

After a travel day, four remaining teams play another round-robin, as above. Two top teams advance to finals. (Round over in six days.)

After a travel day, the finals: if one of the teams went undefeated in previous round, it needs to beat fellow finalist only once. Fellow finalist would have to beat undefeated finalist twice (in a row, obv). (Finals over within two days.)

Minimum number of games played by one team: three.

Maximum number of games played by one team: eight.

Tournament takes 16 days to complete, shorter than current set-up.

sounds ok, but one travel day from tokyo?

OK, two.

what do you do about three-way ties?