Hey It's the World Baseball Classic that No One Cares about

I haven't really been following the World Baseball Classic. I know I'm not the only one out there. It just doesn't have the passion of soccer's World Cup. It feels more like baseball at the Olympics before it was cancelled. I think more people cared about women's figure skating.

I haven't watched a full game but only see highlights on ESPN. I did see the Japanese baseball team get A-bombed on a controversial call. The call was that the Japanese runner left third base too early on a sacrifice fly. He seemed pretty fast running to home so I'm sure he didn't think it was going to be close. The throw home wasn't even close. He was ruled safe and even on an appeal by the USA team. Then maybe Buck Martinez reminded the umpire that the USA can't lose in their own game, on their own soil, to the Japanese. So the call was reversed and the runner ruled out. On replay he clearly left after the ball was caught.

Okay umpires make bad calls. We saw it in last year's World Series. We saw it in the Super Bowl. But when the umpire is from the USA in an internation compeition, it makes the situation look lousy. Rarely do calls like that get reversed. I think the umpire that made the call out wasn't even the one closest to the play.

If the game was played in Japan, roles were reversed and a Japanese umpire reversed a call in favor of Japan, the USA would be livid.

Really I know USA feels like they should win this tournament because we're the ones who invented the sport. If they haven't noticed other countries are catching up to us in all sports. Look at international basketball. When was the last time we won a world championship? When was the last time we won a gold medal in the Olympics in baseball? These are two sports that we invented that we're getting beat at constantly.

What's worst was that it made Alex Rodriguez hero with his game winning single. However if that was the championship game, he would have grounded out with the bases loaded.

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