World Baseball

I'm really pleased we finally have a true world series in the World Baseball Classic. In Venezuela last November I had the opportunity to see some baseball. You know shortstop Omar Vizquel, right? He's Venezuelan. You know his acrobatics at shortstop? That's Venezuelan style. I saw guys turning double-plays with behind-the-back flicks, barehanders, and spinning jumps. Style.

I just saw the end of the Venezuela - Dominican Republic game (DR won 11-5). The fans were going nuts all the way through. That's Latin American baseball. And try a Japanese game sometime - constant horns, traditional Japanese drums, cheerleaders. How about Italian baseball - they fall down a lot and dramatically grab their knees in pain (just joshin'...). I know nothing about Italian baseball. And Cuban baseball!

This is the joy of the game in discovering the little stylistic differences. US baseball, especially the American league, puts a premium on power. Go for the maximum score, immediately. Everyone loves the homerun. The biggest stars are the homerun hitters. Illegal juices flow through their veins. Other countries play different games. Look at Ichiro Suzuki, one of the greatest hitters in MLB. He's great because he hits to hit and can hit nearly anything. He can pull one over the fence, but what he does exceptionally well is surgically place the ball between the infielders. He's sharp, has beautiful bat control, and then speed and intelligence on the bases. That's a different game than the one in which you swing for the fence.

Look at the pitchers' ball movement and motions. The windups are slightly different if the pitcher hasn't spent time in the MLB. Different kicks, different ways of concealing the ball. You see pitchers who have developed that slight extra movement on the ball as it heads into the catcher's mitt.

We have a great chance to see players we'll never see in MLB. Great players themselves. But we also have a competition to which we can now genuinely attach "world" as an adjective.