I have to say that I did enjoy seeing the WBC game here at the Tokyo Dome, even though Korea defeated Japan in a 1-0 pitcher's duel. I especially liked watching the phenom Yu Darvish pitch an inning of relief and the frenzy which took place every time Ichiro came to the plate. I love watching Ichiro play - he has one of the best swings in baseball in all of the time I've watched the sport -- up there with Pete Rose and Wade Boggs. He makes it seem so effortless.
But back to the larger WBC in general - it is horrible way to determine a "world champion." Unlike soccer or American football, or even basketball, where the better team regularly beats inferior teams, baseball regularly has inferior teams defeating superior teams. That is why it takes a 162-game schedule to determine the best teams and a 7-game series to determine the champion. Games are often won and lost based on the better pitcher but a particular pitcher only goes once every 4 or 5 games. I also don't like how the same teams keep playing the same teams but not others. The U.S. played Venezuela (in different rounds for different stakes) 3 times and Japan and Korea have squared off 4 times already (possibly one more time) while some teams never play each other. It is also just plain stupid that teams which have already qualified for the next round play each other to determine the seeding. It's a pointless game.
Not that anyone has asked, but if it were up to me I'd make it similar to the UEFA Champions League or World Cup. Maybe pare it back to 15 teams: 3 groups of 5. Each team plays every other team in its group twice for a total of 8 games per team. Take the top team from each group plus the top second-place finisher. Then those final four teams play a 3-game semi-final series followed by a 3- or 5-game final. The winning team would play 8 preliminary games, 3 semi-final games, and 3 or 5 finals games for a total of 14-16 games. If the early rounds are run concurrently, it can all be done in early to late March.
