Posted by pubstar on 2009-11-19 00:33:18

Why can't the World Cup be more like the World Series, and only our teams get to play? The US wins the World Series every year, just how I like it!

Posted by bobafettsmum on 2009-11-19 00:46:27

I always thought the "World Series" was pretty ridiculous since only americans compete in it.

Posted by Sttucker13 on 2009-11-19 01:36:38

There's a "world" outside the US? I always referred to it as the "wasteland".

Posted by pythrr on 2009-11-19 04:59:52

The Yankees are not part of the US. They are from the land of Satan.

Posted by adambomb on 2009-11-19 05:31:32

Pubstar you forgot the couple years where the Blue Jays won the World Series...

Posted by Catalyst32 on 2009-11-19 08:08:15

The players in Major League Baseball come from all over the world. At least the parts of the world where Baseball is played. The Yankees just one with arguably Japan's best slugger playing an important part of the lineup.

SO calling it the World Series or calling the NBA Champion the World Champion or the Superbowl Champion the World Champion is ACCURATE because the best players in the world in those sports play in those leagues.

This did not used to be true about the NBA as few as 30 years ago. But if you can play Basketball at an elite level NOW you are in the NBA.

Believe it or not their are even non-US born players in the NFL... usually playing Kicker. But if you can play someone will pay you to play the game no matter where you are from.

I don't know enough about Hockey to know if the NHL Champion can truly claim to be the World Champion.

Posted by Catalyst32 on 2009-11-19 08:10:02

Ooops... I mean "the Yankees just WON" not "one"
/me slaps self

BTW... The Yankees win ttthhhaaaaaa YANKEES WIN!!!

Posted by koadah on 2009-11-19 12:36:30

How can it be the World Series when most of the world really doesn't care?

How many Americans care? ;)

I am sure it can be quite entertaining if you are very, very drunk.

The only way to make it exciting is to award extra points if the pitcher manages to hit the batter in the head with the ball.

Plus even more points if the batter manages to attack the pitcher without being tackled by fielders.

Posted by maysrill on 2009-11-19 13:48:20

In any sport, if there are multiple top-tier leagues scattered across the globe, you need a global event to determine a world champion.

If a sport's top league is undisputed, and top players internationally gravitate to it to be able to compete at the highest level, then you can justifiably call that league's champion the world champion.

Soccer, rugby, cricket, etc. are all too internationally dispersed for one league to crown a world champion. In baseball, football, basketball and hockey, you'd be hard-pressed to convince an impartial observer that MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL aren't the top leagues in the world.

The top baseball players in the world play in MLB. Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, and Daisuke Matsuzaka are legends in Japan, and play in the US (+Toronto). Every kid growing up playing ball in Latin America wants to play MLB baseball. Despite being an American/Canadian joint venture, I think americans are a minority in the NHL...there are a ton of european players. Basketball has a ton of internationally-born stars and some up-and-coming european leagues may someday steal enough talent to force the creation of a World Cup of sorts, but it hasn't happened yet. The NFL is dominated by US players and that's unlikely to change soon; the dregs of the NFL teams would massacre the all-star team of any other league.

To my original point: it's a world cup because it's disputed globally. No dispute, no world cup.

Posted by pubstar on 2009-11-19 14:06:10

As a die-hard baseball fan, my only aim here was to shift the focus of a blog about soccer towards a sport I better understand. Thanks to all who participated :P

In all seriousness, go US in the WC. In my mind it's the biggest sporting event in the world, and I'd love to see our boys get it done. I just hope this time around the same group of guys who fired up the grill at 8am will be around again to do some good old fashioned AM-style drinking and cheering ;)

Posted by erased000026 on 2009-11-19 14:54:16

Denmark 3 -1 USA... HUZZAH!!!

Posted by Araznaroth on 2009-11-19 15:36:33

You understand baseball, congratulations!!!:)

Just a sidenote, NHL might be a league with lots of internationals but there is an Ice Hockey World Cup every year which features teams from country's and not city's as true world championships should be:)

Posted by maysrill on 2009-11-19 17:28:24

Interesting about the hockey world cup. Who'd have guessed.

While I support the US team in principle, it will be nice if it ends quickly around here. It's all well and good to hear the soccer partisans around here, but US soccer nuts are a sad, sad lot, and the less we hear about them the better ;)

Soccer - about to become the Next Big Thing in the US (as predicted every year since 1976)