WBC uniform watch

I’m sure many people noticed this, but some WBC uniforms are alarmingly similar to MLB uniforms. Guess that’s template at work (and lack of creative colour schemes due to flag colours, though not every nation adheres to their flag stripes). Anyways, without further ado, here they are:

Australia

South Africa

It was difficult to tell them apart on quick glance, especially since they played in the same pool in Mexico City.

Oakland Athletics

Different font, obviously, but pretty similar otherwise.

Canada (home)

LAnaheim Angels

Canada has the faux vest thing going.

Canada (away)

Arizona Diamondbacks

Reverse the font colouring, and you’re basically there.

Dominican Republic

Future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez pitching for his homeland, earning a job with the Mets in the process.

Texas Rangers

There’s that annoying underarm panel in many WBC jerseys, and the helmet bill’s different colour, but otherwise…

Italy

LA Dodgers

(Immortal Manny at work)

Obviously. Was this done because of the Piazza-Lasorda connection from the first WBC?

Netherlands (the Cinderella!)

Baltimore Orioles

Cap colours need to be reversed, and MLB teams seem to be fond of cursive fonts while WBC unis tend to use block fonts.

Now for the more far fetched connections after this jump

WBC Pitch f/x

Some interesting WBC Pitch f/x articles for Japanese, Korean, and Cuban pitchers for their games pitched in MLB parks, these are normally data that are not seen or available, either in these pitchers home countries or in the US. The websites BeyondTheBoxscore and FanGraphs are doing a great job gathering and breaking down the data, so I’m just gonna link to them here (also for posterity since these articles are already getting buried under the usual barrage of MLB articles). All articles are interesting.

Yu Darvish (Japan) – FanGraphs, BeyondTheBoxscore (satisfying all observers with his stuff)

Hisashi Iwakuma (Japan) – FanGraphs (getting rave reviews for his pitch selection)

Ryu Hyun-Jin (Korea) – FanGraphs

Yoon Suk-Min (Korea) – BeyondTheBoxscore

Felix (Venezuela), LaMura and Cody Cirillo (Italy, the latter with his 67mph “changeup”) – BeyondTheBoxscore 

Cuban pitchers who pitched in their first game against Japan (from wild Chapman to Maya to Vladimir Garcia) – BeyondTheBoxscore

Wily Cuban veterans Vera and Lazo (and his 57mph somthing) in their elimination game against Japan – BeyondTheBoxscore

HardballTimes also has analyzed Pitch f/x data from Round 1 and Round 2 featuring pitchers in the Toronto Round (Yoel Hernandez, DiFelice, Mestri, Cillo), and the 2nd Round in Florida (Leon Boyd, who pitched himself into the Toronto Blue Jays organization, congrats!) and San Diego (Chapman, Vladimir Garcia, Oliver Perez).

Added: Hisashi Iwakuma and Kyuji Fujikawa (Japan), and Bong Jung-Keun and Ryu Hyun-Jin (Korea) – Hardball Times

WBC pitch speeds, they were generally slower than during the regular season showing that pitchers are not ready in March, not a big surprise. The pitcher with the most decline in velocity was Matsuzaka, which is kinda surprising considering he was training from January – BeyondTheBoxscore

The Dutch-Canadian pitcher and recent Toronto Blue Jays signee Leon Boyd – one, two

Quarterfinals set for 2008 Worlds

The quarterfinals for the 2008 World Championship in Halifax and Quebec City has been set. With the disappointing performance (combined with the ineligible German player controversy) sent Slovakia down to a relegation series against Slovenia, which it won (France, with Huet being the difference maker, won the other relegation battle against Italy.)

Quarterfinals on 14 May are:

Czech Republic – Sweden

Norway – Canada

Russia – Switzerland

USA – Finland

The CZE-SWE and RUS-FIN matches will be great clashes of titans, and the Swiss are always strong and can easily give the talented Russian squad a run for its money. Canada has the easiest draw, but the team only won 2-1 over Norway thanks to a last minute Nash goal, so we’ll see if Grotnes can pull off the supergoalie gig yet again. 

Some great quotes from the Norwegians  🙂

Even getting this far is an amazing triumph for the Norwegian national hockey program, which operates on an annual budget of less than $1-million. Heatley alone operates on an annual budget 10 times that.

It is a team that boasts a former NHL player, 32-year-old Anders Myrvold, who last played for the Detroit Red Wings in 2004, and a collection of European professionals, semi-pros and amateurs.

But they have, Myrvold said, a secret weapon.

“We have Viking blood,” he said. “You know Viking blood? It doesn’t exist in Canada.”

The players are salesmen and teachers – one for kindergarten – but mostly they are in building trades, carpenters like Grotnes, electricians and plumbers.

“If you need anything, just give us a call,” Myrvold said with a laugh. “You can’t call the Canadian team. All they can do is play hockey.”

Hahaha.

Surprisingly, attendance has been disappointing, especially in Halifax where all Canada games have been held so far.

IIHF Uniform Watch

The great, the good, and the ugly

Canada, of course, in a money grub move have new sweaters for this IIHF 100th anniversary tournament they’re hosting at home. Other teams all have the same Nike template uniforms, which are all boring except for a couple of them. Luckily, all teams wore throwback jerseys from various eras, and they were mostly good.