Friday, March 17, 2006

Next!

The sun still came up in the east this morning.

The national pastime, which ceased to really be the national pastime some time ago, has become the international pastime (if we ignore soccer) with the official exit of the U.S. team from the inaugural World Baseball Classic [sic].

Good pitching beat good hitting, at least when it came the U.S. team’s meager production against everyone but South Africa. Mexico used one starter and seven relievers in eliminating the Americans, 2-1, in what may have been Roger Clemens’ last game.

Expect domestic interest to drop off precipitously as the WBC winds down, led, no doubt, by the networks and their advertisers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They probably had the advertising commitments months ago, so the best MLB could hope for was interest at the gates, and they're going to get it big time.

San Diego has one of the fastest-growing Asian populations in the country. They are treated with a Korea-Japan semi-final, and a final round with at least one of those teams.

Think about this: A final featuring US and not an Asian team could actually draw less. This worked out perfectly for MLB.