Well folks, it's down the final, and Japan and Cuba are fighting for the title of "World Champion". Actually, I don't think the winner can rightfully make that claim; I believe the victor, officially, will be the "World Baseball Classic Champion", leaving the arrogant front-runner of the US major leagues to lap up the "World Champion" imprimatur sometime in October.
Makes you wonder, really, if the victor in any American sports league - the NFL with it's lunatic battle-gear the lone exception - could ever, with any degree of seriousness, say its dominion extends much beyond the Rio Grande. It would be nice if, as in soccer, the Major League Baseball champion - either the Red Sox or Yankees, I don't care which - had to face the reigning kings of other leagues, in a champion on champion face off to determine club team superiority.
Could the White Sox, those darlings of the South Side, beat the Tigers or Giants of Japan? That would be the truest test of our baseball superiority, if the pampered American squad could fend off the disciplined stalwarts of a foreign club team. Of course, there aren't any MLB team's that would qualify as "all-American" in the Republican sense, but if some Fortune 500 outfit bought the rights to the club team championship series, they'd probably support the Marlins even if they are minority American.
If that couldn't be worked out, maybe the "World Series" survivor could contest the reigning WBC-winning team, either the Cubans or those scrappy upstarts from the Far East, as things stand now. If Japan pulls it off, my money's on them against the American representative - if mullets, per capita, are symbolic of baseball prowess, the US will have no chance. Same goes if we face the Cuban team - obviously our decades-long sanctions-regime just isn't working, not in Havana, and definitely not on the baseball diamond.
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