Why hasn't the WBC caught on in the U.S.?

The Game Room
21

Canadian hockey fans, sure (and all the Europeans)… but I’ve been shocked, really, at how dismissive some American hockey fans are to the Olympics. Yes, it’s better-off than international baseball, but it’s also far longer-established. I think the same basic dynamic, of American disinterest in other countries, is still a considerable factor.

This isn’t true, except for a subset of mostly American players.

Top-level players generally condition all year nowadays, and several of the participating countries are not just looking ahead to the beginning of their competitive seasons. Most of the Latin players have been in winter ball, for example, in LIDOM, LMP, LBPPR, or LVBP, the champions of which just played the Caribbean Series in February. This includes lots of guys signed to MLB organizations for the summer seasons. The Cuban Serie Nacional is now in an extended post-ASG break to accommodate this tournament.

The structural objections are essentially rooted in the fact that it’s a short tournament (longer than Olympic tournaments, but very short compared to seasonal baseball). Now, personally, I would love little more than having the WBC expanded with many more games. How do you reckon most American fans would feel about that?

22

I’m a huge baseball fan. I follow the majors very closely and go to a bunch of minor league games each year. I read about the majors a lot, I know a lot… I sometimes think I get way too invested in the outcome of major league games.

And I have no interest in the WBC. I couldn’t tell you who won the previous two (is it two?) championships. (I could tell you who won, and played in, every World Series going back into the forties, probably.) I couldn’t tell you all the teams who are in it this time around. (I could probably tell you every AAA affiliate of every major league team.) I do remember that the Netherlands beat the Dominican Republic once or maybe even twice last time out, which was cool for about 5 minutes. I’m your classic “It hasn’t caught on.”

Why not? Good question.

In my case, there’s something not quite “right” about March, as others have said. (Though it isn’t “time for other sports” for me 'cause I don’t follow anything else at all closely.)

I have doubts about the quality of play, sure, though for me anyway that may be a red herring. The better teams will certainly have better players than the short-season A-ballers who populate my local stadium, and I go to see them.

The idea of international competition doesn’t do much for me, maybe because MLB is increasingly international? When my MLB team wins the World Series my identity gets a boost from that reflected glory (stupid, I know, but it does), but if the USA team won the WBC that won’t happen. My national team beating Japan or Cuba or Australia in baseball just doesn’t seem important or meaningful next to my major league team beating Milwaukee or Atlanta or Detroit.

As for the way the schedule is done, I agree it’s short and kind of random. Then again, I don;t have any good understanding of how the schedule is set up, so I’m not exactly speaking from a position of great knowledge here.

I think the bottom line for me is that the WBC just isn’t on my radar. It’s an interruption, it seems kind of half-assed, from what I know about it, and at least in the US the players and MLB team management don’t seem all that interested, so why should I be different? If MLB embraced it completely, insisting that it be done some other time of year, insisting that players take part if asked, halting the season for it if necessary; if the media made a big deal out of it–which it doesn’t now, AFAICT espn doesn’t bother to provide box scores–well, maybe, I might possibly be interested, but I’m not at all sure about that. It’s like I’m full when it comes to sports, I don;t really have any need or desire for anything beyond what I have already got, and so I push away the plate when the WBC comes along and say, “No, thanks.”

Don’t know if that answers the question or not. It is interesting to think about.

23

You may be right about that. I know a lot of people get positively disgusted if they see a team that’s just not playing up to snuff. I don’t think it’s so much quality as energy, however - a team with a lot of drive, hard work, and effort can really draw in fans; teams who just slack it off frequently drive them away.

24

Being in shape and having your batting eye or pitching control back are not the same thing. And I’m not sure they’re in baseball shape in any case. Pitchers seldom pitch more than 3 innings in spring training at this time, for example. And yes I’m ignoring the Latin American winter leagues. The OP is after all why U. S. fans don’t show much interest in the tournament. The major league players who participate in the Latin American Leagues are by and large playing for their home countries which are not the U.S.

25

Because the rest of the world doesn’t matter to most Americans? The Olympics kinda matters, because we get a chance to beat all the other countries efficiently, in just a couple of weeks!

26

The Netherlands just beat Cuba!

I can’t believe all the people who call themselves baseball fans, who are missing this…

27

No slight intended RickJay.:slight_smile:

Another point is that baseball at the highest level is not well-suited for a short tournament. In the majors they play a 6-month regular season schedule that separates the best from the also-rans, with the understanding that the also-ran clubs frequently beat the best clubs in single games or best the in a 3 or 4 game regular season weekend series. If the World Series champion Giants were to lose 3 out of 4 to Pittsburgh in July it wouldn’t be the end of the world. You lose 3 out of 4 in the WBC you go home.

28

I saw an earlier game of the Netherlands. I thought all of their players would be from the Dutch Antilles and Aruba, but from what the announcers were saying, I guess there is a pretty robust league at home.

29

I see that ESPN now does have box scores. That helps some.

But in looking over the ESPN site I also see that the Italy-Canada game was stopped early because of the mercy rule.

I’m curious–is any other serious fan (yup, I call myself not just a baseball fan but a serious baseball fan :)) surprised by the use of this rule in a tournament that aims to be taken, well, seriously? I associate it with little league and high school, not with top-flight players.*

Sorry, I don’t mean to come across as if I’m constantly dissing the tournament. I’m glad other people are enjoying it; it’s just that I can’t seem to drum up much interest in it for myself.
*My view of mercy rules may be colored by my status as benchwarmer on my HS team. I did get two late-inning pinch-hitting appearances in games where the outcome was not in doubt, but was despairing of ever getting to actually play in the field when, in one of the later games of the season, the coach told me to grab my glove, I was going in next inning. We were winning by a good margin, so he no doubt felt it was safe. Unfortunately, the good margin turned out to be TOO good, the mercy rule kicked in, the other team went home, the opportunity never arose again, and my HS career ended without a single game in the field. I have never been an enthusiastic supporter of mercy rules ever since. Not that I am bitter or anything.

30

The mercy rule is used because the tournament is sanctioned not only by MLB but by the International Baseball Federation. IBAF sanctions several other global and continental baseball competitions (some of which are age-limited), and sometimes team quality varies pretty widely. If, say, Japan is on course to pile up 30 runs against exhausted, inexperienced Pakistani pitching (and destroy any hope Pakistan might have had for making a game of it with the Philippines next day), it is thought to serve players and fans better to call a merciful halt.

I suppose opinions may vary on which approach best protects the integrity and aesthetics of the game.

That Italy should have caused the rule to be invoked to ‘spare’ Canada, in today’s game, was a startling turn of events, to say the least.

Yep, the Honkbal Hoofdklasse! In fact some of the Aruban and Curaçaon guys move to the European part of the Kingdom to play in it.

Italy and the Netherlands are the two European countries with the most developed baseball, no doubt about that. But few fans think European baseball as a whole can be compared with the North American, Latin/Caribbean, or East Asian game… so it’s really fun to see these two squads playing so well right now.

31

As mentioned above, it’s standard in international games, including Olympic baseball.

32

But if every nation did send its best players, then what we’d have would be a series of All-Star Games.

I suspect many baseball fans view the WBC the way they view the All-Star Game: as a fun but ultimately meaningless exhibition. It’s not “real” baseball because it’s not a series of games between real teams who play together over the course of a season.

33

I live in Phoenix. The first year of the WBC, I was super excited about the concept of it, went to two of the games held here…and then ignored the whole rest of the tournament. Paid NO attention to the second one, and had a half-hearted thought, “Maybe I should go to a game” replaced immediately with “I’d rather watch my Indians take on my second-team DBacks at Goodyear Field Spring Training.”

It seems forced. It seems like baseball is saying, “Ha! Take THAT, Olympics! You don’t want us? F*** you, Jobu, we do it ourselves!” It’s hard to get any new major sports thing to take on in the states, even if it’s a takeoff on an established sport - check out any of the myriad football leagues that have been attempted. We’ve got regular seasons of baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and NASCAR, plus minor league, independent league, and other events. But these are all pretty well-established. In addition, other than the Olympics, Americans just don’t get that invested in multi-nation tournaments. Even World Cup Soccer, though it’s growing more of an audience.

34

One of my friends, a Yankees fan, is saying get rid of it because Mark Teixiera got injured in it. Telling him that baseball players get injured in a million ways but try telling him, and other fans, that.

It may also take some time to develop fan interest. People will say there is a lot of interest in winter olympic hockey and that is true. But i don’t remember it being much discussed in the olympics of the 1960s and 1970s when I was growing up. Not until 1980, and it is helped now by the NHL shutting down and sending its players during the Olympics.

35

Winnowill, maybe you should have gone today. From a baseball forum,

36

Baseball, by its tradition and because of the pitching factor, is a series game, not a winner-take-all game.

  1. Talking to a Yankees fan is like talking to the wall.

  2. Teixeira didn’t get hurt during the WBC per se; he got hurt during practice. He could have easily gotten hurt during Yankees practice or during a Grapefruit League game.

37

I’m not really a baseball fan, but I do see a reason I probably wouldn’t watch the WBC if I were: this is billed as an international tournament, correct? Yet the best of the best of our teams aren’t playing in it. And those that are playing in it aren’t ready because it doesn’t agree with our baseball season.

So there are two possibilities: the U.S. team will still dominate, which makes the contest not very serious. Or the U.S. team will get beaten, and I’ll still wonder if it would have gone differently if our best had played their best. Neither one makes for interesting watching, in my opinion.

An international tournament is only fun when its your best against the best of other countries.

38

The USA team is an exceptional assembly of players, if perhaps not strictly the best possible. But regardless of their performance, it’s a great tournament. This year’s edition has been the best yet, on the field. I’m an American, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy watching all the other teams. Because I am a baseball fan; even if the American team were the best possible, they wouldn’t be the only or necessarily the most compelling team to watch.

Still, it’s fair to say that, all in all, this is an event built more for baseball fans elsewhere, or with ties or interests elsewhere, than it is for casual middle-American fans.

39

I guess we hate the other WBC for the same reason the WBC hates us: we dislike the rampant cosmopolitanism of it, and it makes Jesus cry. God hates flags.

40

But it is. International players who play for MLB teams in the US play for the teams of their nations of origin, not for Team USA. Which makes the Dominican and Japanese teams pretty formidable, and also explains why the US team hasn’t won it.