America Embarrasses Itself in International Sports Competition Once Again
Derek Jeter is fucking awful. Full stop. I can’t believe I drafted him in fantasy baseball, even if defense isn’t considered. Watching him play shortstop in this World Baseball Classic has been amazingly painful. How do Yankee fans stand a full season at this point? Maybe he plays better on Official Yankee Sod? I was legitimately horrified when he was put out there AGAIN while Jimmy Rollins was slotted as the DH. Did Davey Johnson not learn from the last game? I thought that maybe this year the USA team was starting to take this tournament somewhat seriously, but the managerial decisions tonight made it blatantly obvious that they are not. Roy Oswalt was left out as long as he was because he needed the work. The fact that he was allowing the game to be put out of reach had no bearing on the situation. Behind 6-2 to Japan? Who cares?
The simple truth is that every single other country takes this much more seriously than the U.S. and that’s just pathetic. If you’re going to participate, try your best to win. I’m not saying to send players out there if they’re hurt, but Jeter at SS plus Adam Dunn in RF does not equal a good defense. And leaving pitchers in so they can reach their pitch count only emphasizes how much of a joke this tournament is in the eyes of the U.S. team. As a result of bullshit like this, Japan is once again going to win this tournament, like I predicted a few posts ago. This is like when the USA basketball team was consistently losing to other countries in international competition. The other teams’ fundamentals were better, and they were more much emotionally invested.
I don’t want to hear the injury arguments. I really fucking don’t. Guys get hurt in spring training just like they do in the WBC. It’s just a lot easier to get angry at a glorified exhibition tournament than at a untelevised spring training game. If they’re not ready for “full-intensity” games yet, why don’t they get to spring training earlier? These guys are only getting paid millions of dollars to play a game for a living. I think they could manage showing up a couple of weeks earlier than the other players to prepare to kick the shit out of other countries. I understand it’s baseball and that one game isn’t a reasonable indicator, but that last inning was fucking disgusting.
/TommyLasorda
…I still think the Fangraphs idea is the best way to do this crap.
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