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(New York, NY) – So you’re a baseball fan. A fan of Major League Baseball? Well it’s too bad league officials and the team’s owners routinely prioritize people other than actual baseball fans when it comes to the sport as a whole.
The World Baseball Classic is a great example. Who asked for it? The month of March is for spring training, and boring stories about players being in the “best shape of their life,” an over-the-hill veteran batting .400 during exhibition play, a young bullpen arm fighting to make the roster. Baseball fans have grown accustomed to reading quick blurbs in the sports page about otherwise meaningless games, crossing their fingers no key players get injured.
It’s a fitting metaphor for life, really. Hope springs eternal each March, and April, with flowers blooming and leaves growing on trees. Then summer with all its green growth and blue skies advances the year forward. Finally, in autumn, during the harvest, the league learns who has graduated into becoming league champions during the annual World Series Oktoberfest.
Baseball World Baseball Classic Opening Day
But apparently MLB decided that wasn’t good enough. Change was needed. Spring training – which identifies its purpose in the name – isn’t sufficient. Instead, baseball should morph into something resembling basketball or more accurately soccer during a several-weeks-long period every several years. Reports have said an enamoration with the World Cup, or the fact baseball was dropped from the Olympics, inspired the push for the WBC tournament.
Of course, the injury risk is heightened by thrusting players who would otherwise be ramping up for a long season into intense competition. That’s been seen with pitchers mostly, who take painstaking effort to build up their pitch count and intensity throughout a traditional spring training. Some have suggested the injury concern could be mitigated by playing the tournament during the All Star break or at the season’s conclusion.
The WBC’s injury risk was laid bare in all its ugly glory on Wednesday night. After beating the Dominican Republic to (checks notes) not win the tournament but rather advance in pool play – Puerto Rico’s team took to the field to celebrate. Mets star closer Edwin Diaz had just closed out the 5-2 win. People will tell you it’s a big deal when Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic play baseball, although MLB’s stats and standings weren’t impacted.
So, since it’s such a big deal, the celebration included someone or multiple someone’s jumping on top of Diaz and then he seriously injured his knee. ACL, PCL, MCL? Probably – imaging is pending. But because someone thought the World Cup is cool, and because someone got mad the Olympics dropped baseball, and because spring training games don’t make any TV money, the WBC was created. And then, because one team continued to play in the tournament, players saw fit to celebrate. Then, Diaz wrecked his knee and arguably ruined the Mets season before it started.
What a classic! A World Baseball Classic. That no baseball fan asked for in the first place.
