Foreign Fan

I woke up this morning and saw that Team USA lost to Japan last night.

Excellent.

My brother is always annoyed at my choice of team in international sporting tournaments. In the World Cup or the Euro Cup, I never root for the US, and rarely the Czech Republic (our Dad is Czech), usually favoring France or Italy or, in the last few years, the Dutch team. In baseball, the Dominican Republic has always been a very attractive choice for me.

I think he understands the situation a little better now that he's spent a year in Ecuador and supports their soccer/football, but he still doesn't understand why I never root for Team USA.

The answer is relatively simple: they're boring.

Why would I root for US baseball when I already root for an American baseball team 6 months out of the year?

I love my Boston Red Sox, granted, and I love the players. But the style of play just isn't exciting on the international field.

When the World Baseball Classic came around in 2006, I was astounded at the final game. Japan vs. Cuba - a totally different kind of ball game than I was used to seeing. Each team had very distinct strategies, and each played their own special brand of baseball.

Moreover, if the point of the WBC is to spread the game of baseball, it wouldn't do to have the US clobber the little guys all the time. That is not good motivation for the countries with the up-and-coming baseball programs.

So I'm kind of excited that the US didn't make it to the finals, and it will be Japan vs. Korea. Japan actually has a Sox player on their team (Daisuke Matsuzaka), and there weren't any left on Team USA. Japan and Korea have a big rivalry, and the game should be thrilling.

On the Bright (Orange) Side...

When your team loses, it never looks good - no matter which way you look at it.

But it doesn't have to look bad.

Here's what I have to say about the Dutch national team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic: They played really well.

You've heard it all by now - they were the "Darlings" of the Classic, the underdogs, the team everyone expected to lose every game they played - even after they had proven themselves with two wins against the superpower Dominican Republic and a close loss to Puerto Rico.

Even in Sunday's game, I couldn't believe how quick the announcers were to dismiss the Netherlands. For example, "Japan is scouting whoever they might play next, and in this case it would be the US". In only the 5th inning. And this, just after they had credited the Dutch team with never giving up.

The Brian Roberts story didn’t help – it’s a very dubious situation. The rules surrounding last-minute roster changes such as these are apparently very vague. What it all boils down to is when the second-round pool actually started: when the Netherlands played Venezuela on Saturday, or when the US played Puerto Rico seven hours later. Either way, I think that it is inexcusable that Netherlands manager Rod Delmonico was not informed of the change until the last minute.

I won’t try to displace the blame - the Netherlands lost, fair and square. The pitching, which had been their strength all along, really fell apart. These guys like Rick van den Hurk, Juan Carlos Sulbaran, and to a lesser extent Dennis Bergman and Leon Boyd, who had given stellar clutch performances throughout the first round, were totally inconsistent. Van den Hurk and Sulbaran had a combined 6 runs (4 of them earned).

But the Dutch offense really pulled it together. The Netherlands matched the US in hits with 12 – a huge feat for a team who had been pretty weak offensively, and beat the Dominican Republic in their first game on only three hits (with the help of a few errors).

And besides the fact that they played so well in Round 1 and shocked the baseball world by advancing to Round 2, there’s a second element of pride to their success: They never gave up. Even against the US, when they were down 8-0, they played the full nine innings and went out there swinging, right down to the last out. No matter how well or badly the US does from here on out, I will take considerable comfort in the fact that Team Nederland gave the powerful Puerto Ricans a run for their money, twice, and was never mercy-ruled into a shortened loss.

That’s more than Team USA can say.