Let's play ball!

For something with such a grandiose name like the world baseball classic, you would think more people would care. The competition starts this week with teams from around the world vying to win the coveted... I actually don't know what they win. I bet it's something good, though. Like a King Size Kit Kat or something.

I'm approaching this competition with cautious optimism. I think it will be an interesting endeavor in international competition and I always love to see players out there giving it all for their homeland. Laying it on the line for the country of their birth.

Oh, wait... Mike Piazza is playing for Team Italy. That's Norristown, Pennsylvania's own Mike Piazza catching for Italia. Are you kidding me? That's only one instance. The big debate for the American team earlier this year was whether or not Alex Rodriguez would play for the United States or the Dominican Republic. There were pros and cons to each side. The biggest argument for playing for the U.S. being, I don't know, he was born in friggin' New York City!

(Actually, I think it was all just a show by A-Rod until he found out that neither team would pay him more for being on their team. I'm surprised he even agreed to be in the thing after that. I swear to god, if North Korea offered to pay A-Rod more to play for them, he would change his name to Kim-Il Rod and move to P'yongyang. I hate that guy.)

I don't get this roster thing at all. A-Rod decided to play for the U.S. in the end, but Piazza is playing for Italy and Nomar Garciaparra was going to play for Mexico (which I'm sure he's been to a few times, but he was born in California.) You could make the argument that Piazza is not the best catcher the U.S. has to offer (hell, that's not a argument, that's a known fact), but if that's the case he should just not be playing at all. Could Chan-ho Park be on the United States pitching staff? Absolutely not. But he and Byung-Hyun Kim (who's kind of an anti-relief pitcher in all honesty) are the studs of the South Korean rotation. And guess what? They were both born in South Korea! I looked it up!

All that aside, the real fun may be off the field as the crazy Cubans come to town. Cuba and the U.S. have always had a tenuous relationship. There was that missile thing back in the day, assassination plots and that decades-long embargo thing. The Cuban team had to receive a special sanction from the government just to participate in the tournament. You can't tell me their aren't going to be at least two or three Cubans that do the dollars to pesos conversion of what a fifth string middle reliever makes in salary and decides, "Screw communism, I'm getting myself a pair of Timberlands!"

MOVIE REVIEW

Doom (Eric Urban, The Rock) - I loved the video game that this movie was based on and always wondered why they never made a movie about it. I wish I was still wondering. Guns. Mars. Demon creatures. That's about all you need to know.

I'm finished,
Nate