Should the US be embarrassed by their wbc performance ??

tennesseebanker

Should we be embarrassed by the US performance in the WBC? This is supposed to be the country where baseball was invented. America's Pastime may have past us by.

DirtyDog48

The way that the US approached the WBC was totally different from the other participants.....the Asian and Latin American squads are in it for national pride.....the USA pros look on it as little more than an inconvenience...you're talking apples and oranges.

Writer11

Not sure whether this is true or not, but I heard Eric Karros on ESPN say that this is the middle of the season for the Cubans - they actually stopped their season to play this. He also mentioned that the regular season for Korea has already started. I think his point was that the American players are still in Spring Training mode, while players from some of the other teams are in mid-season form. I'm not sure if this justifies the performance but it's something.

I do agree that there did appear to be a lack of intensity with some of the American players compared to the other country's clubs. Some of the Americans weren't even running hard on ground balls in the 7th inning last night. If you can't run hard on a ground ball in a do or die game for your country, it makes you wonder if their heart is truly in it. And God bless Buck Martinez, a true gentleman - but why did they have him managing?

Wabittwax

Yeah, American pro sports has really gotten bad. Instances like this, the Olympic basketball team losing the gold a couple years ago, and guys like Jamal Lewis who are afraid to run hard because they don't to ruin their next contract, have proven that players don't play for the same reason's they used to. If I played pro sports, national pride would be HUGE to me. Stuff like the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team are things that you can't put a price on. Money is important but moments like that are legendary.