Archive for International

I continue to not get excited about the WBC, but that doesn’t mean that the off-the-field stuff isn’t interesting. For example, there’s all kinds of fun stuff in Jack Curry’s WBC notes piece. Like the fact that Bernie Williams was either (a) wrongfully accused of striking that woman or (b) is really getting the wagons […]

The Giants are looking to do more in Japan: If you can’t beat ’em, recruit ’em. On a day the Giants lost to Japan 6-4, they announced a hiring that they think will help make them competitors for top Japanese talent. Shun Kakazu, a Japanese native and Harvard grad who worked the past three years […]

It isn’t the regular season, but it might just be better.

If everyone saying that the Yankees will be better off without Alex Rodriguez is right, why didn’t the absence of Albatross-Rod cause Team Dominican Republic to breeze past the Dutch? Edit: Beat to the albatross reference by nearly a week.

Here’s the kicker of that Dominican Republic-Netherlands elimination game I linked this morning. Manager Felipe Alou started David Ortiz at first base — a position he hasn’t played in the Majors since 2007, and hasn’t played well since God knows when — because he wanted extra offense. The result: Ortiz goes 1-4 and the D.R. […]

I missed this the other day, but in light of the problems in the Dominican, the chatter about a potential worldwide draft is increasing: Recent cases of fraud and potential corruption involving the signing of baseball players in Latin America have cast new attention to the possibility of a worldwide draft in major league baseball. […]

USA Today looks at why, apart from simply being a baseball-mad country, Cuba is able to produce so much talent: “Everyone plays all positions until about age 15,” says Adelio Garcia, manager for this team of top 13- and 14-year-olds from the western Havana district of Playa. “They like kids with many skills.” “They” are […]

On March 5, 2009 the second World Baseball Classic kicked off as Japan shut out China. The clear favorites in this year’s pool are Japan and Korea, two countries with well-known baseball histories, but today Richard looks at less baseball-oriented Asian countries.

The WBC has begun, with Japan beating China 4-0 in the opener. For those of you who shut down the computer at 5 yesterday and didn’t see my last post of the day, here are the reasons why this is about as expansive as I’m likely to get with respect to the World Baseball Classic […]

I’ve taken many jabs at the WBC lately. Well, maybe not jabs, because I don’t actually hate it or anything. But I certainly have made a point of saying how little I care about it. A reader asked me what gives in the comments to the People in My Neighborhood post this afternoon: Craig, I […]