Love Your Baseball

"Before you love your team, you love your country."

That is one of the taglines Major League Baseball is using to promote its inaugural World Baseball Classic (WBC). Something about it rubs me the wrong way. I don't think falls in line with the published purpose of the WBC...

"The World Baseball Classic was created to provide a platform that will increase worldwide exposure of the game of baseball and further promote grassroots development in traditional and non-traditional baseball nations. The tournament's primary objectives are to increase global interest and introduce new fans and players to the game. The World Baseball Classic acknowledges and pays tribute to the tremendous growth and internationalization of the game."

The WBC should be a celebration of baseball, not a celebration of national pride. There has already been too much of that this year. The world recently had two weeks of flag waving thanks to the Olympics and many weeks of flag burning thanks to protests over cartoons. The organizers should ditch the tagline and come up with something better.

While I haven't been following the WBC closely, I know that Japan and Korea advanced to Round 2 from Group A. There are four groups, each consisting four teams. The other three groups - creatively named B, C and D - began play yesterday.

I know I'm a few days behind, but here are my predictions of how the Classic will play out. Those advancing to the next round will be:

• Group A: Japan and Korea (It already happened, but I would have predicted it. Really!)
• Group B: United States and Canada
• Group C: Puerto Rico and Cuba
• Group D: Dominican Republic and Venezuela

I expect Japan, United States, Cuba and Dominican Republic to reach the semi-finals. Japan will then top the USA and the Dominican Republic will clobber Cuba to reach the last round. In the end, Japan will claim the first WBC title.

If I had my way, it would be Canada and the Netherlands vying for the championship. Why? Because I think baseball needs a boost north of the border. When the Expos left Montreal, the sport suffered a setback in Canada. As for the Netherlands, well, I'd like to see them in the finals because they are major underdogs in a group dominated by a trio of South American countries.

Of course, it would be humorous if Game of Shadows, the new book about Bonds and steroids, ends up overshadowing everything, from the WBC to Spring Training.