I just read that the WC of Baseball is happeneing now in Cuba and Brazil just eliminated China which is a first in Brazilian Baseball which is played mostly by the Brazilian born Japanese decendents. No press here in the States for such a Cup. http://www.gazetaesportiva.net/ge_noticias/bin/noticia.php?chid=121&nwid=23270
I see where Japan beat the U.S. in that tournament. Only press that baseball gets here is major and minor leagues, not to mention the Olympics. To a lot of people here, that's the only baseball that exists, or at least that matters to them.
Of course, it probably doesn't help the whole "publicity" thing when the tournament is played during the playoffs and World Series.
Re: Re: World Cup of Baseball, now playing That's because MLB is the only league that matters. That Japanese league they have going on over there is cute and all, and they're kinda good sometimes too, but outside of that and Major League Baseball there aren't any leagues that at all matter on this earth.
After surviving elimation games with South Korea and Italy, Taiwan was upset by the Russians. Granted, many of Taiwan's top players weren't there because the Taiwan Series had just concluded. However, this is an embarassing upset for Taiwanese baseball.
Almost an amazing upset as Brazil took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the 9th in today's quarterfinal against Cuba...but Cuba hit a two-run homer to win 4-3. The US lost 2-1 to Taiwan in their quarterfinal. The US starts qualifying for the 2004 Olympics next Friday...they are sending a team of minor leaguers similar to the one that played in Sydney.
MLB has no idea how to grow the game of baseball worldwide..... MLB could double their profits if they had a true World Cup of Baseball that the US actually took seriously.... Enough with the nice exhibition games...... play some competitive international baseball already! Humiliate the US on the baseball diamond! Go Team Go !
After the "World" Series, there should be a 2 week tournament somewhere warm where the WS champs take on maybe 3 other champs from around the world for a true World Championship. Dont gimme the "players" are tired crap. If they played 180 games, another 5 isnt going to kill them, especially when you make 8 figures a year! Until then the term WORLD CHAMPIONS that is used in Baseball is a JOKE and clear evidence of the ignorance that reigns in the US.
Suggesting that any foreign team could beat the Yankees or Marlins or Red Sox over a series is the joke... However, I wouldn't mind seeing a 12-team international tournament...maybe the top 3 US teams (both World Series teams and the top regular-season team who wasn't in the Series), 2 from Japan, 1 each from Korea, Taiwan, Cuba, Australia, Mexico, Venezuela, a European team (probably from Italy) and a "wild card" team, either from Africa or another Asian or Latin American team.
Baseball needs 2 international tournaments.... The Baseball World Cup The Baseball World Club Championship
And so is calling the NHL and the NBA champs WORLD CHAMPIONS is likewise a joke. The NBA COULD be world champs, but lately that point can be argued. The NFL...ok, but it's easy to be world champ of something that you're virtually the only people in the world playing the sport. Kinda like if the Australians called their Aussie Rules Football champion "world" champs.
NY Metros, I agree. MLB is stupid by not getting at least one of the 2 cups you mention done. A World Cup would be interesting as almost 50% of MLB players are foreigners and a WCC would allow us to get a Club that REALLY is World Champs. But actually the World Cup ALREADY exists, IT WAS JUST PLAYED! But not taken serious by many countries. I dont see why its not done. The dont play most of the Fall and Winter, Im sure they can go somewhere tropical for 2 weeks and duke it out. Amazingly as I watch my daily Brazilian Sports show on TV GLOBO, Baseball has been mentioned about 3 times in the last 2 weeks but mostly because of the World Cup played this past week and Brazil did well.
Glad someone agrees with me. I just hope one day MLB gets its head out of the sand and figuresout that FIFA makes so much $$ because of the international tournaments..... not just the domestic ones..... The best thing that could ever happen is for the US to lose the Baseball World Cup (if ever taken seriously)..... hopefully this would light a fire under their collective a$ses....
absolutely, no argument there.... however..... this is the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP of baseball.... http://www.baseball.ch/
The National Baseball Championship of America was indeed started in 1903..... However how many other professional leagues and teams in other countries were there at that time?
Indeed. Why would you want this? It's either structured in a way which ignores the fundamentals of baseball (i.e. a one-game knock out) or the "American" teams of international stars win every series. One MLB World Series is enough for me. I don't see the need for two. I don't want to mess with 100 years of tradition. Only on a soccer message board would this stuff come up. Nevermind that we still don't have a real club World Cup in soccer. The ideal situation is create franchises in more countries. Transportation constraints make it difficult to do in Asia (unfortunately), but we could see a team in Mexico in the future. Maybe Cuba as well. Baseball needs a meaningful country World Cup. That could be interesting and very competitive. It appears that Bud Selig is working on this for 2005 or 2006. We'll see.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2003/olympics/11/07/team.usa.ap/index.html looks like the U.S. won;t be in the 2004 baseball olympics in Athens. Just got knocked out by Mexico. I see that this country really cares about its precense on the world stage.....