Japan is gonna spank the U.S. The pitchers of the Japanese side will surprise everyone and strike out a whole bunch of batters.

The US lost to Canada so it would not suprise me if they lost to Japan.

Go Japan

I jsut saw a replay of a HORRIBLE call today. Japan should have been winning 4-3 but the stupid umpire said the Japanese runner left too early (which is bullshit if you see the replay, he left at the right time). I call shananigans.

Wow that sucks, but bad calls are all part of the game lately.

They shouldn't be though. This is why baseball needs instant replay. If that slow boring game of American football can have replay to slow the game down more, baseball can too.

LOL you call football slow when you love baseball. I was wondering how long it would take you to delete the post and comment. I am not a huge fan of baseball because it is to slow for my taste. I like going to games though, but not watching it on TV most times.

Maybe because basbeall in Japan is actually fun. You can go to a game and watch the fans in the outfield (right field=Home team's fanclub, left field=Visiting team's) and don't even have to watch the game.

Too bad the U.S. can't get its best players to go to any world events anymore. If we could get the very best of our players to go, we'd win more often than not in most every sport.

We could have had pitchers like Roy Halladay or Chris Carpenter go, but instead, we had...Dontrelle Willis. Don't get me wrong. He can be fantastic, but he's incredibly inconsistent, and to use such a notoriously inconsistent pitcher during the offseason when he hasn't been doing a lot of throwing to stay sharp is foolish.

American athletes are a disgrace today. They are absolutely unwilling to do aynthing unless they get paid a fortune.

Yep, but thats why it was nice Roger Clemens actually played. He cared about his country and not the money. Although I hate the guy personally, he showed his pride for his country by playing. If I could, I'd play for Japan :P

I think the geatest incarnation of American shame came when we got the bronze in the olympics for basketball becuase like 15 super stars all refused to play.

I gained a lot of respect for Iverson during those Olympics because he really wanted to be out there representing the USA.

If we could get our very best to go play basketball, it'd be like the Dream Team all over again. We'd be blowing out every team in the world by 20+ points every night.

The dream team with Barkley and Jordan used to spank some of those teams by like 50 points.

Those were the days when people could be proud to be supporting American athletes (I loved the Dream Team of 92. They were hawt).

Here's an example of how the WBC has effected 2 major leaguers:

Matsui Hideki of the Yankees was gaining in popularity and was about to overtake Ichirou as the most popular Japanese player in the U.S. major leagues. However, he refused to play. He chose to play for the Yankees. This made MANY Japanese people angry and his popularity has dropped quite a bit. Hell, I haven't seen one story on Matsui on the top 5 headlines on Yahoo Japan since he refused to play in the WBC.

Ichirou has been a quiet player, always out of the attention of the media and focused on his job playing baseball. He chose to play in the WBC and became the vocal leader of the team. He showed a lot of emotion and pride in his country and has now solidified his position as the most popular Japanese baseball player around. He has become much more vocal and open with the media, showing emotion and being a leader. Ichirou has been on Yahoo Japan headlines and SportsNavi (Yahoo Japan's sports site) consistently since the WBC started.

The dream team of 92 was incredible. I wish that sports especially basketbally could get back to be like that in America but I fear it wont ever go back to the golden days because our entire society is driven by money.

Did you see the Colbert Report and its scoring system.

The biggest drawback of capitalism is the greed and materialism it fosters.

And now you realize why Marx hated capitalism :)

I am conflicted when it comes to capitalism. I want an extravagantly wonderful life which the inequality of capitalism can let me gain yet at the same time with the dog eat dog world then many people will forver suffer in poverty.

Poverty=t3h suxx0rs and because poverty exists because of radical dictators and the capitalist system, I am against the system entirely. I feel that capitalism guarantees discrimination (upper class forces the workers to work so they can live the high life).

Capitalism is discrimination by its very design. Those who "work harder" are supposed to be able to achieve a better life. It fails to factor in nepotism, inheritence, and general factors of inequality of opportunity.

Japan won the WBC.