I am ROFLMAO!!!! The U.S. gets knocked out early and JAPAN wins the WBC over 11 countries. That's gonna put a damper on our World (I mean National) series. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :blink: :blink:
Yeah. The thing that amused me so much was not that the US didn't win, but that there were only two major league players in the champoniship game. There are a ton of great players from outside the US, but I really thought that most of them played in the major leagues. So, while I'm not so surprised that the US didn't win, I am surprised that a team like the Dominican Republic (with all its MLB stars) didn't make it to the finals.
I think we're seeing the intersection of two very obvious---and,in retrospect, predictable---trends that reach back about 50 years, in both baseball and basketball. 1. Other countries where the US is/was well-respected, or (Cuba) where there were historic ties, or (USSR, China) where there was great motivation to beat us at our own games, gleefully---or grudgingly--- adopted "our" sports and made great efforts to school some of their most promising athletes in them. We encouraged this, sending them coaches to help teach them and superstars or whole teams to generate interest and conduct clinics. 2. As Big TV money fed pro sports here and ultimately created a new class of superstars paid ridiculous amounts of money and attention, many of our own athletes, while blessed with skills, have become less coachable and more attuned to money and fame than to performance. Paralleling this, individual accomplishment has superceded the team concept (basketball, hockey), and motivation for US superstars to represent their country is sorely lacking (with notable exceptions). Other countries now take international competition far more seriously than we do.
