The World Baseball Classic has ended, but not without providing a glimpse into the troubles and contradictions of the United States. How fitting that this illustration should be provided by the game known as our national pastime.
Despite various reports celebrating the attendance and TV ratings for the Classic, it’s notable that the championship game Tuesday night between the United States and Japan was relegated to Fox Sports 1, a cable sports channel, not the main Fox over-the-air network channel.
You want to tell me how popular this Classic was, get back to me if Fox, or any other network, limits a future Super Bowl broadcast to a cable sports offshoot.
The Japan-United States championship game, won 3-2 by Japan, was expected to be the most-watched game in baseball history. But that was largely on the expectation that Japan, which had more than 60 million viewers back home for previous games in the knockout stage of the tournament, would deliver similar, if not larger ratings numbers.
Along that line, attendance numbers for the Classic were bolstered by huge turnouts for games played in Taiwan and Japan.
Back home, TV viewers were treated to the United States playing games in Phoenix and Miami and seeming to be the visiting team based on crowd noise.
This is a phenomenon with which the United States men’s soccer team has become familiar any time it plays Mexico in our country and the stands are packed with supporters of Mexico, many of them no doubt here illegally and perhaps using government handout money provided by legal residents/taxpayers to pay admission to the games to root against the “home” team.
Perhaps you were surprised to see Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes playing for Mexico or St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar playing for Japan. I was.
Barnes was born in Riverside, Calif., and Nootbaar was born in El Segundo, Calif. Sounds to me like they’re Americans. But they were able to opt to play for other nation’s teams based on the ethnicity of their mothers.
Even more striking is the refusal of so many top United States-born players to perform for the home team.
Begin with New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, he of the 62 homers last season. Judge signed a nine-year, $360-million deal with the Yankees during the offseason and was named team captain, so he’s at spring training, citing priorities.
Having been born in Sacramento, Calif, and adopted when he was one-day old, by American parents, Judge didn’t have the option to play for another nation.
Notably, three of Judge’s Yankees teammates played for various teams in the World Baseball Classic.
You think Judge’s power might have helped in that 3-2 title loss? Just maybe.
Even more glaring is the absence of so many top pitchers from the US roster, including Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Although there were pitch counts to protect pitchers in the tournament (think Little League) fear of injury was cited as a reason not to participate.
And no one ever got hurt throwing in spring training?
But Japan didn’t have this problem, providing a roster packed with talented pitchers, many of them used to win the title. That includes arguably the best player in the world, Shohei Ohtani, who was both a designated hitter and closing bullpen pitcher in the championship win over the United States.
Guess he can’t get hurt in these games, but our homegrown stars can?
It’s a fact as old as the game of baseball, good pitching beats good hitting. Our U.S. roster was strong offensively, but challenged on the mound. U.S. manager Mark DeRosa referred to how “difficult” it was to put together the roster, which one would not think would be the case for a national team.
It wasn’t a problem for Japan, which is why that team won the championship.
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