Since the inception of the World Baseball Classic in 2006, the tournament has been treated with the type of good-will ordinarily saved for an unexpected visit from your third cousin Matilda and her six children, three dogs, and deadbeat husband. Front offices dislike the WBC, citing legitimate concerns about the health of their players. American fans are at best apathetic, at worst resentful of their favorite players risking their health and missing Spring Training to participate. The players are the only group, who, as a whole, seem to enjoy the World Baseball Classic. Those who aren’t invited to play keep their mouths shut, and those who are treat it as an honor. As they should.
Yet I’m declaring to you today - send all hate mail here - that the World Baseball Classic is good for baseball. I understand the potentially disastrous implications for a team should a player get injured during the intensity of the WBC. I understand that the tournament takes valuable time away from Spring Training. But what I also understand is that baseball is slowly dying, and the World Baseball Classic represents a form of hope for the sport.
Baseball is no longer the national pastime. That honor now belongs to football. Care to argue? When was the last time you saw a church change its service times for the World Series? How many advertisers will pay $3 million for an ad in the World Series? How many World Series parties did you get invited to this year? See my point?
You’ve also seen the last of baseball in the Olympics, unless it wins reinstatement for the 2016 games. The Olympic Committee has deemed baseball “too American” for the games, although I’d certainly love for someone to inform me when the last time was that a person from a nation outside Asia competed for a medal in ping-pong. I mean table tennis. Excuse me. My point is, not all sports have appeal in every competing nation. Soccer, anyone? Even though baseball is popular in the US, Latin America, Japan, and Korea, it’s still gotten the boot. The still ongoing steroid scandal has done nothing for baseball’s popularity, and, let’s face it: outside of New England and New York, many people simply don’t care that much about baseball, at least in relation to other sports.
Enter the World Baseball Classic. Amid the controversy, the WBC has been a source of great national pride in countries like Japan and Korea who performed well in 2006. When young athletes see the sport being glorified through these victories and the media’s emphasis on the games, they will be more likely to pursue baseball to a higher level. That, in turn, is good for Major League Baseball. Assuming the US can hold on to its reputation as the baseball capital of the world for a few more years, the elite athletes from Japan, Korea, and Latin America will continue to migrate to the US to play professional baseball. That, my friends, is good for baseball. If the MLB can no longer recruit top-notch athletes from this country or any other, that is bad for baseball. The WBC brings baseball to the front of people’s minds throughout the world.
Amid the seemingly constant controversy swirling around the sport of 
baseball, the WBC is a bright light. Players from around the world come, and they care. It would serve the US well to win a few rounds of the WBC this time. The more kids interested in baseball, the better. Not only are they the fans of tomorrow, but they are the players of tomorrow. Every time an athletically gifted young adult chooses to pursue football or basketball instead of baseball, the MLB loses.
It’s counterproductive, really, for the Mariners to try to prevent Adrian Beltre from playing in the WBC. In the short term, it upsets players, and, as we’ve all learned, unhappy players, no matter how talented, do not benefit their team. In the long term, the Mariners - among others - hurt baseball by not allowing the best players to play in a tournament which deserves the title of World Series more than our traditional October Classic.
So to Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Dice-K, Javier Lopez, and the other Sox traveling to the World Baseball Classic, best wishes and please be safe, or I’m going to be writing another article next week bemoaning the poor timing of this stupid tournament. But seriously, best of luck to the boys from the USA. Every game won is a step toward revitalizing baseball, one of America’s most historic sports.
Just please don’t get hurt.
