Those baseball-free winter months now seem like a lifetime ago.  One of the great joys of the baseball season is that there is something to capture your imagination every single day and that trend has started already.  With another memorable week in the World Baseball Classic, more coverage for the sport on a national radio station in Britain and, most importantly, the BaseballGB fantasy draft taking place, there is plenty to write about in this edition of ‘Weekly’ hit ground ball.   

World Baseball Classic living up to its name

The WBC could rely on the novelty factor during its inaugural staging in 2006.  This time, it was the baseball action alone that would need to draw in the fans. 

 

Well, it has done just that and the European teams have been right at the heart of it.  The Netherlands caused the biggest upset of all by knocking the mighty Dominican Republic out of the tournament and qualifying for the second round.  While Italy were not able to join them in the next stage, they were also responsible for eliminating another more-fancied team by beating Canada 6-2.

There have been plenty of other great games, some of which I’ve written about on the new BaseballGB on MLBlogs site.  Australia’s 17-7 win over Mexico was a stunner and it’s hard not to marvel at Cuba’s baseballing brilliance, but the two games combined between Japan and Korea have been the highlight for me so far.  They have provided an excellent showcase of how completely different contests can still be exciting to watch in their own unique ways.  Fans of offense would have really enjoyed Japan’s stunning 14-2 victory in game four, while pitching purists would have been captivated by Korea’s 1-0 win in the game to determine which of the two teams would top pool A. 

My predictions of which teams would make it through to the second round went quite well.  Pool D was the only group for which I failed to predict correctly who the top two teams would be.  Not that I missed out on the Netherlands though.  It was the Dominican Republic’s early exit that caught me (and everyone else) by surprise, with Puerto Rico progressing to round two instead. 

I don’t think you can do much else other than guess which teams will make it through from here to the semi-finals.  With some evenly-matched teams playing over a short format, it’s true to say that anything can happen.  That includes the U.S. having the ‘mercy’ rule imposed on them by Puerto Rico last night.  The Netherlands lost a tight game against Venezuela yesterday meaning that they will face the U.S. in a sudden death match from 23.30 tonight.  America might have the well-known names, but the Dutch have already proved that names can count for nothing.

After their opening Round Two performances, I’m going to predict that both Venezuela and Puerto Rico make it through to the semi-finals.  As for Pool One, I’ll go with Cuba and Japan.

Whichever teams qualify, and however they get there, one thing is clear: the real winners are going to be us baseball fans.

More Radio Four coverage

The second part of Simon Schama’s Radio Four documentary about baseball was just as good as the first.  Schama combined his own views with those of the likes of Roger Angell (“the living memory of baseball history” according to Schama) and former England cricketer Ed Smith to describe how the sport developed and to explain some of the fundamental parts of the game.

The importance of Exeter-born Henry Chadwick was made clear and helped to show the British influence on the sport.  Of course, this was downplayed as baseball became America’s National Pastime.  Starting with the ‘Doubleday myth’ and Albert Spalding’s clever marketing of the game as a way to be American, the British roots were carefully left to one side. It’s quite possible that the sport would have never become such an important part of the American way of life had this process not taken place.  Still, it’s good that Britain’s contribution can now be fully recognised and also that we have our own baseball history as well.  No doubt more than a few Radio Four listeners would have been surprised to hear that prominent footballers played baseball during the summer to keep fit back in the early twentieth century, for example.

The origins of the sport make for a fascinating story, but that story wouldn’t mean much to a Brit if he or she thought the end-product wasn’t worth bothering with.  Thankfully, against the backdrop of a Red Sox-Yankees contest, Schama and his fellow contributors did a great job in getting across just how difficult the game is to play.  Add to that the experience of watching the sport, where the onlooker can be “caught between terror and hysterical joy” when a game can turn on a single piece of brilliance or a mistake, and the appeal of baseball was well and truly established.

UK-based readers who missed the programme, or want to hear it again, can do so via the iPlayer for the next six days.

BaseballGB Fantasy League

We’ve reached that time of year again when millions of baseball fans are drafting their fantasy team(s) for the season ahead.  The BaseballGB Head-To-Head league draft was held last night and never has a nervous/excited/frantic hour and a half gone by so quickly before.

The nature of the draft means that you have to make a whole series of tricky decisions.  In fact, that process begins days before the draft comes about once you’ve committed to playing in a league.  Picking a team name, unless you repeatedly use the same one, can be far more difficult than first appears.  The obvious starting point would be a reference to your favourite team/player.  Otherwise you can try to think of something witty, clever or that amuses you for some reason.

After wracking my brain for a while I finally turned to one of my favourite play-by-play calls for inspiration.  When a batter chases (and misses) a high fastball, he is said to have “chased the cheddar”.  So, the Cheddar Chasers were born.

Let’s hope my pitchers make plenty of batters chase the cheddar and that my hitters fail to live up to their team name (unless their cheddar-chasing ways bring plenty of homers, runs and a high OPS, of course).