Americans Have No National Pride (have ya heard?)

I just came to the site to write a WBC rant, but you beat me to the bunch. So I’ll add my two cents.

MLB continues to be staffed by a group of F**KING MORONS.

Why do I say this? Because MLB created the WBC, and you’d THINK that if they wanted it to stay around, if they wanted it to gain some prestige, if they wanted it to endure….you’d THINK they’d apply some basic marketing principles to the whole boondoggle. Because their attendance SUCKS. For all of the games, not just the USA ones. And why does it suck? Because the games are RIDICULOUSLY overpriced.

Case in point. I live in Los Angeles now. I can almost walk to Dodger Stadium. Almost. So when I hear the semis and finals are this weekend, I think, “OK, I’ll take a flyer. It’s still too early for real baseball, so I’ll go watch a bunch of guys I’ve never heard of.”

Despite the ridiculous exhibition rules. Despite the fact that all the foreign teams are at least 25% to 50% guys who never played in the MLB and never will—they’re not good enough. Despite the fact that the US team features the likes of LaTroy Hawkins and Joel Hanrahan. “WTF,” I think, “I’ll go watch something kind of baseball-y.”

So I log on to the WBC site, which is chock-full of suspenseful stories:

• Umpires don’t use replay in Classic—Despite appearances, the first use of instant replay in the World Baseball Classic never materialized on Monday night in the Venezuela-Puerto Rico game at Dolphin Stadium.
• Braun, Lindstrom sidelined for U.S.—Add two more Team USA players who project to be out for the remainder of Round 2 at Dolphin Stadium. Lindstrom has a strained right rotator cuff and Braun is dealing with tightness on his right side.
• Rule mixup costs Cuba two pitchers—Cuban relievers Yulieski Gonzalez and Yunieski Maya were not available against Mexico on Monday because of a mixup regarding the pitch-counts rules.

Goodness! There’s LOTS of DRAMA, isn’t there? WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

I wend my way to the tickets link. And my jaw drops. Because to see a SEMIFINAL game, MLB wants $45.

$45! In the middle of a recession! To see exhibition games! FROM THE WORST SEATS IN THE STADIUM (the upper-upper deck). If I want to sit in the upper deck behind home plate? That’s another 10 bucks.

And just for comparison? Those same tickets for a Dodgers game? You know, a game where there aren’t any pitch counts, and ALL of the players are actually major leaguers? Let’s say, a game in May, where the Dodgers are facing their arcch-rivals, the SF Giants?

Those same seats cost from $9 to $23.

Hmmm. On which event will I spend my hard-earned paycheck?

I fall somewhere between casual fan and devotee of baseball. Call me semi-serious. I go to a few games a year, I follow a team, I am psyched when Spring Training comes around each year, and I watch most of the World Series games but only some of the LCS games (depending on the teams). I am not rich, and I am not poor—I fall right in the middle somewhere, with enough money to go on vacation once a year, but some credit cards with a balances and a mortgage to pay off as well. I have a few dollars to spend on entertainment, but only a few.

Without semi-serious fans like me, baseball doesn’t survive.

Without semi-serious fans like me, baseball is reduced to luxury boxes full of corporate tools who are not watching the game (I’ve been in luxury boxes twice, and the ratio of game watchers to game ignorers was about 1-3 both times), and die-hard baseball fans who buy season tickets and do 5 fantasy leagues and buy all the clothes and get married with their teams’ colors and buy extra innings even though they have the local sports package already.

Without semi-serious fans like me, baseball becomes more and more of a “niche” sport. So to get ratings, TV stations and the League itself work harder and harder to pump up rivalries that don’t exist (Orioles-Nats) and overhype ones that 90% of the country don’t care about (Yankees-Red Sox). Which means other teams don’t get coverage, which means even more fans stop caring, which means contraction.

In short, baseball is devolving into NASCAR status.

Hey MLB! Want to know how to get the fans back? ALLOW THEM TO SEE THE GAMES. For free on television, and for a reasonable price at the ballpark.

Solid post.

I hate to shit in anyone’s oatmeal, but the World Baseball Classic is basically spring training on steroids.

The beauty of a professional sports league is that men are forced to grind it out with each other for an entire year, usually longer, in hopes of getting to the final game eight/nine months later. When a team finally does take the crown, they’re rewarded for committing themselves to their franchise, and that is certainly notable.

Conversely, the players in the WBC have been together for a matter of weeks, and I personally cannot see how the Venezuelans can shoot their loads after beating Puerto Rico.

The games in Toronto were actually embarrassing, though, as that indoor baseball stadium sold > 10,000 tickets to games featuring the best of Holland.

I’m not against the World Baseball Classic as Selig and co. have to make their mark in the international market sometime, but quite simply, there is no suspense or excitement in the tournament.

Anyway, people accusing America of not having patriotism is absurd. I’ve traveled to many different countries, and the US is far and away the most nationalistic state on the face of this Earth. The United States is almost unanimously regarded as the most patriotic country per various international polls, and also amongst many different groups of people, so those speculators are quite ignorant.

There are very few other places in the world where students are taught almost exclusively the history of their own country, and the news feeds nothing but domestic issues. This isolationism is understandable as the US borders two indirect colonies, but the point remains valid.

I think another point to be made is WHEN the WBC is. In the middle of MLB spring training. Then consider that it is in the middle of Japan’s season. That’s a pretty big advantage right there. I haven’t heard about people’s patriotism being questioned but if it is that is really dumb. It’s not that the fans aren’t patriotic it’s that they don’t care. The WBC doesn’t mean anything to them and why should it? The USA invented the sport and they have nothing to prove the other countries do. Japan vs. Korea is a huge deal, some of the Latin countries have rivalries as well but who are our rivals? We don’t have any.

Americans should be less patriotic, not more so. This just adds further proof to the notion that people associated with baseball are some of the dumber people on this planet.

Baltimo is exactly right. It’s almost like we’ve become so isolated and out of touch that people actually want to become MORE isolated and out of touch. I have a lot of complex feelings about the idea of globalization, but c’mon. The nation-state has to stop being the answer at some point.

Let’s see, what else can Americans watch right now for sports…

1) College Basketball (conference tournaments, mostly)
2) NBA
3) NHL
4) NASCAR

And, let’s not underestimate

5) Watching and reading about player movement in the NFL and the upcoming draft. ProFootballTalk.com burned its servers on the first day of free agency, then burned The Sporting News’ servers and then almost took out MSNBC’s servers before finally getting back online on their own. There’s a reason the NFL Network is 12 months a year. I’m betting more fans could tell me how the pro-day workout of their favorite college players went than WBC results. (Darrius Heywood-Bey looked good at Maryland’s by the way, and don’t be surprised if Jeremy Navarre ends up signing with some team).

There are four other major professional leagues holding meaningful contests right now, and the brontosaurus on the block, the NFL, is in its business time of the off-season.

And we wonder why people are watching or attending the WBC? At $45 a ticket to get in the door?

I just can’t get myself interested in international competitions. Like Stacey said, I hate Derek Jeter all year, and I’m suppossed to root for him now? Uh-uh.

For the same reason, I enjoyed olympic hockey better before they added all the NHL guys.

"It definitely hurts a little bit to know that you’re always the away team in your own country," he said. "There are some good people out there, but it would be nice to have a lot more of those people chanting ‘USA,’ holding up American flags. That’s the one thing we didn’t see much of the other night – there were more Puerto Rican flags than American (flags)."

Youklis has probably never played in anything less than a sold out house, so I guess he has that excuse, but honestly, that was ridiculously ignorant.

But I can’t feel terribly invested in these games because they feel like exhibitions games… or competitive spring training games. There’s a mercy rule and strict spring training like pitch counts, consequently, it doesn’t feel like real baseball. There isn’t a starter who goes the distance, even managers are sensitive towards not over using their position players. All of this fine, afterall I don’t want to see B-Rob or Guts suffer an injury, but it distracts from the game’s realism.