Idiots Write About Sports

I caught some of the historic first-ever game of the World Baseball Classic last night. Not sure how something can be a “classic” before a whole game has even been played, but what the hell… I was up, and it was baseball.

A few notes:

• There sure wasn’t a whole lot of fanfare before the game started. ESPN 2 jumped from some dumb documentary about college football players or something directly into the game, without even so much as a couple minutes of pregame to explain the logistics of the tournament. I realize that this thing was on at 1:30 AM Eastern, but they could at least have pretended to be enthused. Any excitement I had harbored about the possibilities of a worldwide baseball tournament were dampened considerably by the fact that the Worldwide Leader in Sports seemed less interested in this game than they did in the Little League playoffs.

• And what little residual excitement was left was pretty much obliterated by the glacial pace of the game. The Asians, it seems, like their baseball slow, deliberate, and as devoid of excitement as possible.

• I don’t know who the color man on the ESPN 2 broadcast was, but he makes Rex Hudler sound like a world-class orator by comparison. It was, however, hugely entertaining to listen to him stumble over his words while trying to find a way to make blanket statements about Asian baseball players without sounding overtly racist. Speaking of which…

• Them Japanese baseball fans, they’re all about making noise. Loud, continous, unbelievably irritating noise. I’d like to track down the guy with the whistle and sneak a valium into his edamame.

• There sure were a lot of empty seats in the Tokyo Dome for this historic duel between Korea and Chinese Taipei. I realize the Japanese didn’t really have a horse in the race, but considering that the game was the first of what could potentially be a long-lasting tradition, I was really expecting more than eight seats to be filled. Seriously, the 2004 Expos would have been embarrassed to draw a crowd this size. Makes you wonder why the organizers didn’t think to have the Japanese play the first game in order to at least make it appear that somebody gives a damn.
  

About racially insensitive color commentary. I was actually yelling "You are a f*cking racist" at the top my lungs when I heard that guy make the "how do they put the spin of the ping pong ball comment.

The game was slow because China sucked. They struck out way too much, it seemed that their timing was easily disrupted by off-speed stuff and the umpire giving away way too many high strikes.

I write something in my blog in a bit.

"The Asians, it seems, like their baseball slow, deliberate, and as devoid of excitement as possible."

There are those who would say that all baseball fans like the game slow, deliberate, and as devoid of excitement as possible. I'm just sayin'.

"There are those who would say that all baseball fans like the game slow, deliberate, and as devoid of excitement as possible."

Indeed, I have spent many a long and unproductive hour trying to explain the allure of baseball to my more football-minded friends. "Everything is so slow and leisurely," they will complain, to which I will invariably respond, "The better to sit back, soak up the sun, and enjoy your six dollar domestic pee pee beer." This never seems to satisfy them, so I usually just quit arguing and chalk it up to to theological differences.

But midway through that Korea/Taiwan yawner, I think I finally saw things from their perspective. I also came to the conclusion that if I was a baseball fan in Japan, I would have a fist-sized hole burnt through my liver by now, so it's probably just as well that WGN hasn't snapped up broadcast rights for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp.

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