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
So, Japan repeated as WBC champions despite manager Hara’s bumbling lineup and in-game decisions. What was double play machine Johjima doing hitting cleanup? Korea ended up avoiding Norichika Aoki (the best hitter in Japan) to pitch against Joh in several occasions. And what was jetlagged Kurihara doing in DH? Thankfully he was pulled as soon as Bong left the game. Hara also played the game like it was a high school baseball game, automatically trying to bunt over any runner on base with no outs, even if the bunter rarely, if ever, bunts, like Nakajima, Inaba, and Johjima (well, the latter may be forgiven because of the GIDP possibilities 😛 ) and they are more of power hitters usually.
Then Hara left superb starter (and should have been tournament MVP, though Dice-K got that probably for marketing reasons) Hisashi Iwakuma in one inning too long even though Japan was loaded with bullpen options with fresh arms. Iwakuma got out of the 7th inning by giving getting 3 big fly outs to the outfield. Iwakuma is a groundball pitcher, so obviously by this point in the game his pitches were hanging high and he had barely any juice left in the tank, and it showed when he came back onto the mound in the 8th. Hara also could have gone with Sugiuchi in the 9th as he had also been super during the tournament, not allowing runs in any of his appearances, and Darvish can be shaky when he first gets into the game (like Matsuzaka) like during the loss to Korea in Round 2. But Darvish is often electric so he can’t be faulted on this.
So, Japan could’ve dominated (and it showed with all the runners LOB, Japan self-destructed time and again), but barely squeaked out the win. Maybe it was just all a ploy for Ichiro’s heroic game winning hit that drove in 2 runs? Ever the showman, everything was set up for Ichiro in the end 😛 (though the decision not to walk him with the 1st base open with 2 outs was puzzling, Ichiro kept on fouling off every pitch, even obvious balls, in typical Ichiro fashion until he got a pitch he liked, in the finals, he was zoned in. He wasn’t gonna be semi-intentionally walked.)
Anyways, I watched the game with friends including Deanna at a sports bar in the bustling Shinjuku district. The bar was absolutely full, some people were wearing suits obviously skipping work (though, probably the whole country was at a standstill, especially in the late innings) and some fans also had old school Daiei and Kintetsu (Nori Nakamura!) unis on, which was awesome. Here’s the video from the game winning moment when Darvish struck out the last Korean hitter.
PS This turned out to be a fantastic heart wrenching rubber match of a 5 game Japan-Korea series.. but if the organizers would just remove the meaningless seeding games at the end of rounds 1 and 2, this would’ve only have been the 3rd meeting between the teams, which would’ve been acceptable. Instead Japan played Korea 5 times, Cuba twice, and China and the US once in this World Baseball Classic. I’d like to see each team play a wider variety of opponents.
An interesting analysis of WBC attendance on Baseball Analyst. Pretty much predictable, but demographic split in bracketing still seems necessary to avoid mostly empty seat stadiums, so a soccer World Cup style one country hosting all games is probably still too early for the WBC. Good to see healthy crowds at Dodger Stadium for the semis and finals (probably) though.
WBC 2009, Daisuke Matsuzaka (Boston Red Sox) will start in the semifinals at Dodger Stadium against Roy Oswalt (Houston Astros) of the USA. Hisashi Iwakuma (Tohoku Rakuten Eagles), the groundball machine, who pitched 6 shutout innings against Cuba in Round 2 will start the finals if Japan makes it there. The most sought after Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish (Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters), who pitched 1 poor inning and 4 great ones against Korea in Round 2, will be used out of the bullpen for the semifinals and/or finals.
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.
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
The atmosphere at the Japan-Korea I went to see (Japan won 14-2 in 7 innings on the mercy rule, the first time either country’s done it to each other… of course, the Koreans came back 2 days later to shut down Japan 1-0 in its usual nail-biting fashion) was absolutely electric, probably the best sporting event atmosphere that I’ve been in.
Here are some videos from that day (7 Mar 2009, Tokyo round of 2009 WBC).
Taiwanese fans doing the Atlanta Braves tomohawk chop-like cheer against China in the day game.
Ichiro’s at bats, crazy camera flashes in his first plate appearance, bunt single in his second, and crowd going crazy after his 3rd hit of the evening.
Hot on the heels of the Dutch baseball team’s second triumph over the superstar studded Dominincan Republic team in the last four days in the WBC, I’ve been busy for the last couple of hours reading the Canadutch blog by the Netherlands team pitcher and Vancouver native Leon Boyd… instead of working on my taxes. Yeah, procrastination. Anyways, an interesting behind the scenes athlete blog for those interested in baseball where its played as a minor sport, with a little Canadian flavour, and if you go back far enough the Beijing Olympics and their pre-Games preparation in Korea posts are neat too.
Japan, Hockey, Baseball, etc. 