This is unbelievable...
Dolores said:
See my comments in bold type:
Reasons for U.S. demise tenfold (from link above)
ANAHEIM -- American baseball fans deserve an explanation. Or, in this case multiple explanations, for why their team could not advance beyond the second round of the World Baseball Classic. Why was baseball's homeland represented in such average style in this showcase international event? Here is a list of 10 reasons why Team USA, in competition against the best of the rest of the world, was not up to the task of winning the tournament. The first six reasons are really plausible reasons. The last four are just reasons.
1 -- This wasn't necessarily America's best pitching staff. No Randy Johnson. No NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter. No consecutive 20-game winner Roy Oswalt. The experience and guile of Future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux could only have helped. Billy Wagner and C.C. Sabathia were late defections.
ALSO NO PEDRO MARTINEZ, NO BARTOLO COLON, NO DANIEL CABRERA, NO JULIAN TAVAREZ… POBRE ROGER CLEMENS, NOW HE’S NOT SO GREAT ANYMORE
2 -- This wasn't necessarily America's best defensive team. For instance, Ken Griffey Jr., has had a magnificent career, but at this juncture, he does not cover much ground in center. Put Griffey in the same outfield with Matt Holliday in left, and you are asking for a double to the gap.
ALSO NO ALBERT PUJOLS, NO RONNIE BELLIARD, NO MOISES ALOU, NO VLADIMIR GUERRERO, NO JUAN ENCARNACION…
3 -- This was an all-or-nothing American offense. If Team USA didn't hit the long ball, it basically didn't score. Against quality pitching, this was not a recipe for success. There weren't many players on this team who could be effective playing small ball. Derek Jeter could. Maybe Johnny Damon could have helped, but his shoulder was hurting. The quality of international pitching was generally better than anyone could have expected and the U.S. was not able to simply bash the opposition. "We never really got into a groove with the bats," U.S. manager Buck Martinez said. "We never really exploded with the bats." Lacking either the groove or the explosion, the ability to manufacture runs would have been helpful. But this team didn't have it.
MEANING, NO MOISES, NO PLACIDO POLANCO, NO WILLY MO, NO LUIS POLONIA, NO DAVID ORTIZ, NO ADRIAN BELTRE
4 -- This was not, in the largest sense of the word, a team. This was a nice collection of All-Stars, and in some cases, All-Stars to be, but it was not a cohesive unit, such as the one that delivered a 6-0 record Korea. Martinez pointed out that it would have been helpful for Team USA to have had a mini-camp prior to the beginning of a tournament.
WHAT??????????
5 -- The rest of the baseball world was better than we thought. This is an understatement on the level of "gas prices are a little higher than they used to be."
"The quality of the pitching we saw in this tournament was better than certainly I expected on a consistent basis," Martinez said. "You have to tip your hat to the quality of the pitching we saw."
I RESPECT THAT… AT LEAST THEY ARE HONEST
6 -- The rest of the teams were more highly motivated than Team USA. The Americans were not completely unmotivated. But part of the motivation for the rest of the world, was beating baseball's Mr. Big, Team USA. Look at the way the Mexican team celebrated after beating the U.S. on Thursday night. The Mexican players were happy enough that you would have thought they simultaneously won the World Baseball Classic, the World Series, the Super Bowl and the Kentucky Derby. They weren't advancing, either, but their tournament was made by a victory over the Americans. In addition to underestimating the opposition, the Americans may have underestimated the oppositions' motivation.
TRUE THAT… AGAIN DAVID SLAYING GOLIATH
7 -- The American players were confused by the complexities of the tie-breaking system in pool play, and essentially went into intellectual paralysis. Let's face the facts. You've seen the test scores. Young Americans do not fare well in mathematics when compared to the rest of the developed world. The players may have been confused, confounded and generally demoralized by the numbers involved in the tiebreakers. And it wasn't just the players who were bewildered. The American writers were at sea, also. At one point, a number of us believed that if Korea scored more than eight runs against Japan, the U.S. would advance to play Villanova in the Minneapolis regional.
WHAT???? I THINK THE WHOLE WORLD WAS CONFUSED ABOUT THE TIE-BREAKING RULES, NOW THEY WANT TO BLAME IT ON THE ON THE AMERICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM…
8 -- Bad karma. An American umpire in a game played in America in which one of the contestants is Team USA, takes a Japanese run off the board turning a 4-3 Japanese lead into a 3-3 tie. And the call is wrong. The U.S. wins the game, 4-3. Then, the same umpire, Bob Davidson, incorrectly calls a home run by Mexico a double, temporarily taking a run away from the Mexicans. You just can't have an American umpire repeatedly making bad calls that benefit the Americans. It doesn't work spiritually. It doesn't even work politically. Even allowing that the perception of these episodes might be worse than the reality, stuff like this always comes back to haunt. What goes around comes around.
BAD KARMA???????? NOW THEY ARE THE VICTIMS OF AN UNFAIR UMPIRE WHO RULED IN THEIR FAVOR, NOT JAPAN OR MEXICO
9 -- The A-Rod factor. Alex Rodriguez may be the single most talented player in the game today. But the record will clearly show that no team on which he has ever played has won the big one, or anything close to the big one. He drove in a game-winning run in this tournament, but when it counted against Korea, he littered the bases with runners left stranded.
MY GOD, THEY’RE BLAMING IT ON THE ONLY DOMINICAN PLAYER, SERVES HIM RIGHT.
10 -- This was the wrong time to play this tournament. Right. From the standpoint of assuring a U.S. victory, apparently the time to have played this tournament was roughly 1910.
IS THIS A JOKE?????????