Monday, February 27, 2006

Baseball in March?

Yes, something is coming and it's called the World Baseball Classic. It's modeled after the soccer World Cup where professional players from various leagues get together and play for their country. It's going to be a short tournament in March of baseball playing countries. People are going wild about it in the Dominican Republic and Central America, and Americans may get into it once it starts. The Classic is run mainly by Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, and the American baseball players union.

Not surprisingly the usual jerks arose to push their weight around and cause problems with something that should be fun. The NY Yankees lead by their owner George Steinbrenner objected to their player's involvement for fear they'd get injured. They can't officially block their players from participating, but have informally discouraged Yankees from playing. Then the Bush administration worked to prohibit the Cuban national team from entry into the tournament. The Puerto Rican professional league threatened to pull out in protest to another stupid call by Bush and friends. Losing the Puerto Rican league and Cuban team would cripple and in fact invalidate the tournament. Fidel Castro offered to donate all proceeds from the games to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the Bush Administration gave in. Cuba will be in the games.

As suggested above, Puerto Rico, although not an independent country, has a team in these games. That’s just a cool move and of course well earned by Puerto Rican baseball players.

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