No Shame at the Americans' Early WBC Exit

Author's Note: This is the logical follow-up article to my previous one, American Championships End At Their Borders.

This morning, I got my usual e-mail from the Yardbarker Blog. Among the list of today's articles was one (by a writer whom I will not name) denouncing Kevin Youkilis for complaining about America's indifference to the World Baseball Classic.

Specifically, Youkilis pointed out the poor attendance to the games in Florida and the fact that a good proportion of the fans were supporters of the American team's opponents.

The writer then belittled the tournament as a fake "made for television event" and then said Youkilis should be satisfied that fans supported his professional team, the Boston Red Sox. 

Finally, displaying arrogance which would make the American foreign office cower if they ever repeated such language to a foreigner they were hoping to win over diplomatically, the writer said that the "whole world acknowledges the best baseball is played here...what is there for us to prove..."

Obviously, the writer does not want to see baseball grow outside the borders of the United States. And America's early exit from the tournament twice in a row shows that the "best baseball" is NOT being played by Americans.

As I mentioned in the previous article, the title "World Series" is simply a fictional one along with those of the NBA and NFL, for leagues (with the exception of two franchises in Toronto) confined within the borders of the United States. 

Professional baseball, basketball, and football do not play against international competition. The winners are not champions of the world.

It is true this tournament does not have the prestige in America, but it is in its infancy and has the potential to be something more. For now it is the only time that all the best professional baseball players have a chance to play for their country.

Baseball, along with softball, also now has the stigma of being expelled from the Olympics, the first time that has happened since 1936, and one of the speculated reasons is that MLB refused to suspend its operations so that the best athletes could compete for their country. Contrast that with the NHL.

Even at the Olympics, the Americans are not kings of baseball, having only won the gold medal once. Cuba is the all-time Olympic champ. So there is "something to prove."

At the World Baseball Championship, all the competing countries cared enough to send competitive teams. The American players, including Youkilis, cared enough for their country to want to participate and win. It is the American public, exemplified by this writer who pretend the tournament has no significance.

Here in Toronto, the tournament was heavily promoted and looked on with good will and there were many articles written, in support of the Canadian team, bitterness when it did not perform up to expectation, and also about how American indifference was hurting the tournament.

If this was an international hockey tournament and Canada had such an ignominious end as the Americans, you can bet there would be howls of outrage from Newfoundland to British Columbia. There would be similar reactions in Russia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, and Slovakia.

Perhaps what is needed is a rival league in another country that has the money to lure away the top players from the American professional leagues.  

When Canada nearly got embarrassed by the Soviet Union in the famous 1972 hockey tournament, Canadians were forced to admit that other countries played "their sport" just as well as they did. 

Their response was to want to see the best players from their country play against the best the world could throw at them more often.

Bobby Orr literally sacrificed his remaining professional career by wanting to test himself against international competition in the 1976 Canada Cup. 

Kevin Youkilis and the American team wanted to test themselves this year. It is a shame that the American public doesn't appreciate it.