lets talk baseball

First off, I'm sick. I haven't been able to train since Thursday so I've already convinced myself that 4 days off has completely ruined my season and that I've lost all my fitness. I think I'd have made a good crackhead.

I'm generally a part time baseball fan. I go to a few games a year, I follow the playoffs from a distance, and I'll catch a Yankees/RedSox game on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. But I've been glued to the set for this World Baseball Classic thing !

This tournament has been incredible. The games have been exciting and the players ( well the non-American players anyway) have been intense and passionate. This isn't just playoff baseball, this is single elimination playoff baseball. Last night's championship game saw the game tied in the bottom of the ninth and then won in extra innings. Amazing stuff.

I really can't understand how this thing hasn't been better covered or better promoted. I have a feeling that, like Olympic basketball, the WBC is going to continue to grow in worldwide significance and coincide with the decline in US dominance. It look like baseball will yet again be the great American metaphor.

In a related note, Curt Shilling announced his retirement yesterday. The news since has been a debate as to whether or not he should be in the hall of fame. Now I don't like Shilling. He's left a sour taste in my mouth ever since the nonsense he pulled with Mitch Williams back in '92. But despite my tendency to hold a 17 year old grudge, I think the conversation I've heard so far has been unfair.

What "they're" saying is that Shilling might not get in because a number of the baseball writers don't like him. Apparently, he's too outspoken and he challenged too many of the writers. And if there's one thing that baseball writers don't like, its anyone challenging their autho-i-tay.

Mind you, these are the same baseball writers who spend 30 years watching baseball players eat up amphetamines and steroids and didn't say anything, but now act SHOCKED that the game's integrity is being threatened. These are the same people who vilified Bonds because he wouldn't talk to them ( do their job for them), but now they're going to roast Shilling for giving them more column inches than Brittney Spears on a bender. Shilling might be brash, but he was news, and I can't believe the writers, even baseball writers would see past the obvious.

Somehow I think this has a much to do with his blogging being a threat to their profession as much as anything else. Adapt or die baseball writers, you aren't covering Connie Mack anymore.