World Baseball Classic

In a major effort to promote the sport internationally there is such a thing as a World Baseball Classic coming. Although plotted for years, the forces that be seem to have not thought out how to attack the international bureaucracy in implementing the event.

The idea of the thing was to have a replica of the World Cup, but for baseball. That is a fine and proper vision to espouse. The glaring flaw? Any involvement by the stooges that operate MLB headquarters. For starters, the near exclusion of the Japanese team out of a negotiation sticking point; a valid point about the sharing of revenues from the event. MLB almost directed the event to proceed without the Japanese. Given the influx of players into MLB from Japan and their obvious parity of skill, it would be a glaring omission without excuse. The Japanese league is literally considered the second best league in the world. A worldwide baseball tournament without them would not be valid.

Then there was the decisions over timing and placement of the games. Regionally based in quadrants of similarly located home nations, the idea of the tournament appeared more planned than the implementation.

Given the length of the baseball season, there is a short window to explore for off-season events. Of the five months off for MLB, weather was surely not a factor given the ability to bring the game to any venue internationally and specifically closer to the equator if need be. Yet the forces that be decided it best not to place the games in the middle of those five months to give players time to recover from their regular seasons and to give time off after the Classic before resumption of their regular seasons. Rather, they decided to place the games immediately before MLB spring training. Such that if a player gets hurt he directly will suffer in his paying job as a result. Surely this crosses the minds of players who consider the event. They can risk an injury to partake in a fun nationalistic event or they can resume normal off-season training activity in preparation for the work that they are actually paid to do. Some of the best players are indicating that they will not join in the event because they prefer to focus on preparing for their regular season. I believe this is strongly related to the timing of the Classic games.

Then there is the location of said games. Ah, there's the rub. Although I have doubts in the operating forces to assemble well-designed events on the fly (not stadiums, those exist, I mean the assembly of the event within them in practcal terms and with the proper promotion and attention to detail a brand new tournament requires), they also had to know the crossing of borders meant the involvement of the governing bodies of those nations. Sadly, my own nation has proven the most stubborn and least amicable towards allowing this tournament to untangle itself from the politics of the nations involved. Personally, I blame the organizers for not negotiating these political games before announcing the events to the world. The result is a scenario where the event either changes location or it faces dilution from the exclusion of teams. It is ironic that the US would maintain their stance on an embargo against Cuba to include this baseball tournament when the Congress still maintains a provision excluding the sport from labor laws as a game and not a business. We cannot ask why the US allows Cuban players in exile to play in MLB, why the US has an embargo against Cuba in this day and age, why this nation does not boycott other international events the Cuban athletes attend such as the Olympics - including those on our own soil, but we can ask how the forces that organize this Classic did not negotiate the bureaucracy beforehand. Years of planning went into this event, so there were ample opportunities for the conversation to at least be brought to these nationalities in advance of the public announcements.

This obstacle has reached the point that the one internation governing body for the sport of baseball, the International BAseball Federation (IBAF), annouced on January 6th, 2006, roughly three months before the games are scheduled, that the IBAF will not sanction the event without Cuban participation. Since the US Treasury Department has already denied Cuba the right to participate, this seems a power play that the baseball authorities are posing through the media. Hardly the best tactic in dealing with stubborn bureaucrats.

I will love whatever the actual Classic is, sanction by IBAF or not. A-Rod and Hideki Matui or not. Cuba included or not. I love the sport and love the prospects for an international event that transcends the respective nation's baseball leagues. I believe that once the event gets rolling the sport will build this tournament bigger and bigger in each incarnation, similar to the rise of the World Series between the American and National Leagues. It is a logical progression that would surely benefit the promotion of the sport. So I will watch regardless what happens. But I am a diehard fan.

I can also point out the problems with the administration of the event that threaten to decrease its ability to reach nations and its ability to sustain itself as much as it potentionally could. This appears a result of problematic leadership in place. I hope they do not suffer from the same hubris demonstrated by Vince McMahon in promoting the XFL. Somehow, I fear, despite whatever foolishness expressed and enacted by MLB occurs, the event will become a success. I fear that could reinforce their inability to exercise forethought. But the larger picture will be that the sport attains a new level of international participation. I look forward to it with glee.