| World Baseball Classic
Has anybody ben watching this? I've caught a little bit of it, and I've really enjoyed watching it. And, from what I've read, the players are having a great time playing. It seems to be a success, even though many people thought it would fail.
There are a few changes that I think they should make for next time (2010)
1. Play it in November, after the MLB Season is over - If somebody gets hurt, he has at least 3 months to recover before Spring Training. Also, the majority of major leaguers would have a month off to rest up while the playoffs go on in October.
2. A better format, especially for the opening rounds. - This year, there were 16 teams separated into 4 groups of 4 each. So, in the first round, each team played each other team in its group, and then advanced. But, you had a situation where the U.S., Canada, and Mexico all finished with the same record, and all went 1-1 against each other, and Canada got left out because of some tiebreaker. I think that the opening round should be a little longer (5 games perhaps), so that the teams that deserve to go through actually get through. Or, you could separate it into a bracket, and have two teams go head-to-head in a 3-game series, and then you progress to the next round. As it is now, the teams that end up in the finals will have only played 8 games.
3. One central location that varies every year - One of the cool things about the World Cup of soccer (football) is that it's held in one country where all the players descend and people travel to see them and stuff like that. This year, they had games in the U.S., Asia, and Latin America. They should decide, "OK, in 2010, it will be in Japan, in 2014, it will be in Mexico,..." and so on.
All in all though, I think this has been a pretty cool event. |