World Baseball Classic: Good for the Sport!

For those who don't know what the World Baseball Classic or WBC for short, it is a 16-team international tournament that is represented by countries. These sixteen teams are split into four groups (Pool A, Pool B, Pool C, Pool D) of four teams each. The eight teams to advance to round 2 will be put into two separate groups (Pool 1, Pool 2). The winner of these two groups will play in the finals and the runner-ups will play for the bronze medal. This concept was created by Major League Baseball. This year, they are playing the second one in history and it is off to a great start. The WBC is scheduled to take place every four years from now (2009, 2013, 2017, etc.), sort of like the Olympics. The first one was played in 2006 to little publicity and little public interest. USA was eliminated early in the first one and Japan went on to win it by defeating Cuba in the finals.

The World Baseball Classic is becoming as popular as it is ever been, even though there are many owners and managers who are opposed to the ideas of the World Baseball Classic because of the possibility of their players getting injured right before spring training and the start of the regular season, there are more and more baseball players who are taking part in these festivities. These concerns are real considering that players will try to play all out for their country and for pride. Whichever country wins the World Baseball Classic will have four years of bragging rights over all the other WBC countries. The seven venues that these games will be played will be the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo (Pool A), Foro Sol in Mexico City (Pool B), Rogers Centre in Toronto (Pool C), Estadio Hiram Bithorn in San Juan (Pool D), Petco Park in San Diego (Pool 1), Dolphin Stadium in Florida (Pool 2), and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (Finals).

The sixteen countries who are taking part in the WBC this year are China, Chinese Taipei, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Cuba, Mexico, South Africa, Canada, Italy, United States, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Netherlands, Panama, and Puerto Rico. Some of the big league stars who are playing in this year's WBC are Dice-K Matsuzaka, Ichiro Suzuki, Kosuke Fukudome (Team Japan), Russell Martin, Jason Bay (Team Canada), Nick Punto (Team Italy), Roy Oswalt, Jake Peavy, Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkalis, and many more MLB players (Team USA), Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez, Francisco Rodriguez, Bobby Abreu (Team Venezuela), David Ortiz, Jose Reyes, Robinson Cano, Moises Alou, Miguel Tejada (Team Dominican Republic), Carlos Lee (Team Panama), Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Alex Rios, and Bernie Williams (Team Puerto Rico).

There are some mismatches in the WBC for sure. For instance, Teams South Africa, Netherlands, Australia, Chinese Taipei, and South Korea don't have even one major league player while other teams like Team USA and Team Dominican Republic has almost every player on their roster be a baseball superstar. But all the teams have an equal chance of winning it and it should be very exciting watching all the games live!