Major League Baseball may rue the day that it ever helped start the World Baseball Classic. The results of both the 2006 and 2009 tournaments along with most of the American results in the Olympic Games should give Americans cause to question MLB's credentials.

As I mentioned in my two other articles on the World Baseball Classic, there are some people who do care about it. I won't mention foreign care in this article, but let's zero in on the American reaction.

Certainly the American players who wanted to play in the tournament for their country cared about it. The maligned Kevin Youkilis voiced his frustration. And I am happy to report, by viewing a lot of the latest comments and articles on the Yardbarker sports blog, so did many Americans.

Most put the blame on manager Davey Johnson, saying he was too old and the wrong man for the job.

Then of course there are excusers; those who dismissed the tournament as an "exhibition"; those who claim the Americans did not win because they did not have all their best players, etc. 

What nobody is saying is what this says about Major League Baseball.

The only other major sport in the United States that regularly plays international competitions is hockey, and since I am from Canada, I am in a good position to make comparisons.

As I mentioned in my other articles, before 1972, Canada had an attitude about foreigners playing "their game" similar to that of the United States and baseball. The near upset of Canada by the USSR that year caused a revolution in thinking. Russian players were seen to be as good as Canadian players and the public began to clamour for more such competitions.

Canadian public opinion made a choice that affected the future development of the NHL: Either they see only North American players, no matter how bad they were, or to see the best in the world no matter where they came from. They voted overwhelmingly for the latter.

Within two years, the first Europeans from Sweden and Finland began to play in the NHL. When the iron curtain fell, they were joined by the Russians, the Czechs, and the Slovaks and the NHL became as we know it today. With the exception of the newly started Russian league, it is indisputable that the best hockey players in the world play in the NHL.

Now consider the implications for MLB by the WBC's previous two tournaments and America's showing in the Olympic games.

Americans have only won the Olympics once and have never made the finals in the WBC. It is questionable if the United States is even the third or fourth best team in the recent tournament. They only reached the semifinals due to the flawed playoff format that needs to be rectified for future tournaments.

The United States lost two of three games to Venezuela, split with Puerto Rico, before being knocked out by Japan. Their final record was 4-4. Japan, South Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and Puerto Rico all had better records. 

One of the writer/commentators with whom I've crossed swords with on both Bleacher Report and Yardbarker wrote about American baseball that the "whole world acknowledges the best baseball is played here...what is left for us to prove."

But the results of both WBC tournaments and Olympic competition say there is plenty to prove. The best baseball is NOT being played in "Major" League Baseball. It is being played in the five countries listed above.

In addition, nobody knows how good China and Taipei are. They had the misfortune of playing in the same division as Japan and South Korea, the champion and runner-up. If they had been placed in other divisions, it's conceivable that they might have made it to the semifinals too.

Still worse, for the next tournament there is a possibility that the number of teams may be increased to 24. Who knows how good these newly invited countries will be?

Meanwhile Americans are paying top dollar to view baseball that is not "major" league.  They are watching enormous "major league" salaries being dolled out to players whose performance in the recent tournament is less than those of players from other countries making only a fraction of what is being offered in America.

And as everybody knows, baseball is the only major North American sport without a salary cap.

Much of the venom directed at poor Kevin Youkilis came from people who had lost their jobs recently and used him as a symbol of an uncaring, rich sports elite.

So Americans are stuck watching second rate baseball at outrageous prices while the best stuff is played abroad. It also makes ridiculous the claim that MLB's championship is the "World" Series.

When Canadians saw that the best hockey players did not only come from North America, their opinion changed the development of the NHL. Americans, what are you going to do about baseball?