World Baseball Classic: Who bloody cares?

The second World Baseball Classic (WBC) started this morning. Hooray, right? Most of you are probably wondering in your head: ‘What is the WBC?’

That is a very good question. The World Baseball Classic is a tournament designed and created by MLB, the Major League Baseball Players Association and other professional leagues around the world. It was created to display the globalization of the sport and demonstrate baseball’s important place in the world of sports.

The first tournament — held in 2006 — held its final weekend of play in San Diego, Calif. The WBC has a number of weird rules regarding the number of pitches a pitcher can throw in a given day and how many days he must rest after that. It also has a mercy rule — a rule that I despise for its “giving up early” connotation” — that ends a game if a team leads by at least 10 runs at the end of the seventh inning. The tournament features 16 countries from around the globe, and Japan is the defending champion.

Now, I am one of the more passionate baseball enthusiasts that I know, but I still don’t think I could convince many American sports fans to watch the WBC. American baseball fans are 10 times more concerned with the teams they root for than with the U.S. team’s success in the WBC. I would be surprised if even 5 percent of American baseball fans know what the WBC is.

While I was looking over the final WBC rosters online, I was very excited to see that only three players in the San Francisco Giants organization were playing in the WBC.

Most importantly, I was excited to see that 2008 National League Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum, an American, isn’t playing for Team USA. Lincecum is arguably the best young pitcher in the game, and he’d certainly help Team USA, but I care more about the success of the Giants than the success of Team USA.

The MLB season is strenuous for young pitchers, and they should not be participating in a competitive tournament when they could instead be training with their franchises’ coaches and preparing their arms with stretching exercises and practice games. Pitchers’ arms are extremely fragile and need to be carefully watched throughout their careers, especially during spring training.

On top of fans not wanting some players to play in the WBC, some managers have even expressed a desire for their players to not play in the event. There’s a rule in the WBC’s list of odd guidelines that states that a manager or team cannot explicitly forbid a player from participating in the event. Interesting: So a team can’t forbid one of its players, to whom it is giving millions of dollars to play baseball, to play in this tournament. What if a player is hurt?

It was reported Wednesday that Rodriguez complained that his right hip was bothering him too much, and now it has been confirmed that he has a cyst. He has flown to Vail, Colo., and will see a specialist.

The article on the WBC’s website even says, “Despite the injury, A-Rod played.” If “Roid-riguez” was not preparing for the WBC, and if he was instead at spring training in Florida, he probably wouldn’t have played in those two games, and he would’ve gotten to properly rest his hip. Now, he’s facing a more serious injury, and I would imagine that Yankees fans are not happy.

The Seattle Mariners have also strongly suggested to third baseman Adrian Beltre that he not play in the WBC for his home country, the Dominican Republic. Beltre was about to announce his decision to play, but the Mariners front office did not think Beltre had fully recovered from off-season surgery. Beltre, who has performed poorly since signing his huge contract with the Mariners’ in 2005, was not too disappointed and said he understood the Mariners’ reasoning, according to mlb.com.

Despite my concerns, the World Baseball Classic remains an international, competitive sporting event. The Korean and Japanese teams use different and entertaining styles of baseball that are worth watching.

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Also, the United States team is much stronger than it was three years ago, as this year’s team has New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, San Diego Padres righthander Jake Peavy and New York Mets third baseman David Wright. Baseball fans who love baseball for the sake of baseball itself — myself included — will certainly enjoy the WBC.

Those of you, however, who are frustrated about the sport after the emergence of the steroid scandal should until after the WBC to pass judgement on baseball’s resurgence.

The better international baseball competition — I’m sure some of you will agree — is the Little League World Series. (There’s even a hill beyond the right-field fence of one of the ballparks in Williamsport, Pa., to slide down. If the WBC gets a sledding hill, then maybe people will watch.) But America won’t be tuning into the WBC nearly as much as the rest of the world will.