Canadians are starting to wake up to the WBC, which had been deep in the mind of people nervously watching the looming NHL trade deadline. It was a subject of a bit of talk at work last night.
Firstly, the additions and corrections to my post on the topic:
- The Edmonton Journal reports Esteban Loaiza will be the starting pitcher for Mexico. The Oakland right-handed starter is much more dangerous than Lopez: he's also a strikeout pitcher who gives up a better batting average to lefties, but isn't as susceptible to the long ball. Small ball might be the order of the day for the first 6 innings after all.
- I neglected to mention some of the highlights: when Stern made it 8-0, the ESPN-2 announcers brought up the mercy rule (up by 10 after 5, 15 after 7) that they had brought up in the Canada-South Africa game and promptly ignored. They said you never expected to see it in a Canada-U.S. game (even the U.S. wasn't expected to dominate Canada that much), let alone potentially used against the U.S. team. As it was, it obviously didn't happen, but still interesting.
- Stubby Clapp's wife and kid were watching the game (well, the kid wasn't, because he wasn't paying much attention), and Mrs. Clapp was wearing an Edmonton Cracker-Cats ballcap. The Cracker-Cats, our Trappers-substitute, is something of a joke (and has suffered a lot of bad public image troubles) compared to the PCL-champs. But the ESPN-2 announcers spend a good 45 seconds talking about the club. They'd mentioned it against South Africa and I thought they were a half-second away from ripping on the oilfield-inspired name. But in this game, they were impressed by Clapp, by the Northern League, and by the Cats: one of them expressed interest in getting "one of those Cracker Cats caps from the Northern League." "I have a feeling there's one being put in the mail right now" its quipped back.
- Steve Nash (Phoenix Suns) was in attendance. I didn't even recognize him. I wondered why they were showing this guy in a cap, a black guy the announcers made fun of during the commercial breaks, and a moderately-attractive woman in her 30s.
Now onto the fallout:
Fark.com has an active thread now on the subject. The headline? "Canada beats up the United States 8-6. Americans can't win at hockey, basketball, or baseball now. Wait until the CFL gets good. Duke sucks."
Other quotes from the fark.com thread:
- that guy stern is probably ready to move up from AAA ball, considering he single handedly cockpunched the entire united states all at the same time
- How come everytime I hear about the 1980 "miracle on ice" as being this glorious upset I want to fly into a homicidal rage? Hmmm probably because the Summit Series almost a decade earlier was way cooler.
- Glad to see that Matt Stairs is still carrying the torch for us chubby, bald guys.
- Man. Any time a Canadian brags about Canada's achievements, it sounds like those Special Advertising Sections they'd have in Newsweek encouraging foreign investment in a particular developing country, like Bahrain or Nigeria. In other words, it sounds like trying way too hard to showcase way too little.
It goes both ways though. When Americans blame or fault Canada for sociopolitical things like healthcare, that sounds just as pathetic.
You won one baseball game in an event nobody cares about. You win the prize! - Ha-ha, Canada has the Clapp.
- so Stubby Clapp got to 3rd base?
gross... - This is what happens when you fark an Expos fan in the ass!
- Big deal the US lost a glorified spring training game.
- Look, if it were croquet or badminton or cup-stacking, I'd agree wholeheartedly, who gives a damn.
But no, this isn't an event no one cares about or a sport no one cares about. This is BASEBALL. This is America's game. There are Americans that devote their entire lives to watching and studying and loving baseball. Canada beating the US at baseball IS a big deal to a whole lot of people.
There's a Western Standard Shotgun blog entry about the game. I link to the big baseball article early on in it, but a whole raft of political posts buried it far down the page. Odd, really.. every other day there have been stale posts up for days at a time. Of course, being the Shotgun it quickly became a slag-fest.
Allen Weiner addresses the WBC game on his blog. So does The Flying Yangban and Seattle Marinerds.
Other blogs to cover the game are Baseball Musings's live weblog of the game (well, now its good I didn't do that), and 5-time Jeopardy Champion (?) Jack Archey's Sports Humour Blog claims that there's a Canadian conspiracy at work in Phoenix (where Chase Field is).
Primetime Sports' Bob McCown is interviewing Team Canada's Steve Green right now. It wasn't a particularly exciting interview, Steve glossed over the potential for him to move up in the Detroit Tigers clubhouse. The highlight is that its a hugely emotional win, but in reality doesn't mean much as the World Baseball Classic goes. They also made fun of the liberal residency rules: "If you have a stamp from South Africa in your stamp collection, I think they let you play for South Africa." "They might not even have a baseball diamond in South Africa!" Ouch.
