The World Baseball Classic: The Real World Championship

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And they're right.  It's ridiculous to call the World Series trophy a world championship.  Maybe it was fifty years ago but those days are long gone. Baseball is more like soccer or basketball than American football, whether or we like it not. 

It is played on every continent other than Antarctica (though it may be played there, I don't know), with high quality professional leagues throughout the world. And, as we have witnessed for a second time, the United States is not a dominating powerhouse. 

It is one of many outstanding baseball nations, each with unique playing styles that make for great theater and incredibly baseball.

It's time to drop the act that we're the biggest, baddest baseball nation on Earth.  Nobody believes that anymore, not after how we've struggled for two Classics in a row. 

Character guys like Jake Peavy, Roy Oswalt, Derek Jeter, Kevin Youkilis, David Wright, and Ryan Braun all played their butts off to try to win a true world championship and we didn't even bother to show up and watch. 

Even our management blew off the tournament, as demonstrated by Davey Johnson's horrendous pitching management and various personnel decisions, like having Derek Jeter at shortstop and Jimmy Rollins at DH. 

How do we expect to win if we're disrespecting our players by treating their commitment to play as a joke? How can you expect our best players to show up if that's how we're going to treat their best efforts?

So I offer a challenge to the players, management, and fans of American baseball. In 2013, no matter what the format for the WBC, let's take it seriously. Let's send our best players out there in outstanding shape, ready to play some serious baseball. 

Let's support them by showing up to the games and showing the passion that so many foreign fans demonstrated game after game. Let's put our allegiances to our local teams aside and put our love of our country right out front.

In short, let's get ready, really ready, to win a true world championship. Because we already know that the other teams are going to do everything they can to win.

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