Baseball is back in action!

Although the Major League Baseball season will not start until the beginning of April, intense baseball action has already began in the form of the World Baseball Classic. Sixteen countries started to compete in a double elimination tournament last week. The favorites of the competition were the Dominican Republic, the United States, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and defending champion, Japan. The teams were divided into four pools consisting of four countries in each. In pool A, Japan got off to a quick start and won their first two games to qualify them for the next round. Joining them from pool A was Korea, who took care of China 14-1 and then beat Japan to lock up the one seed. In pool B, the two favorites Cuba and Mexico advanced to the second round and they will play tonight to determine who will get the first seed in the pool. In Mexico’s first game of the tournament they were upset 17-7 by Australia. Because of the drastic score the game was called for the mercy rule. Mexico then came back and won their last two games including a 16-1 win over Australia. That huge win advanced them to the next round. Pool C was the most intriguing pool of them all. There were three excellent teams battling for two spots. These teams were the United States, Venezuela and Canada. In the first two games team U.S.A. knocked off Canada in a very close game 6-5. In their next game they played Venezuela and blew them out 15-6. This win advanced them to round two of the tournament. In a huge shocker, Italy defeated Canada 6-2. That loss eliminated Canada from the competition. This left the second seed to Venezuela who beat Canada 10-1 to advance. Venezuela then locked up the 1 seed when K-rod saved a game against the U.S.A. In the last pool it was supposed to be Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico to advance, but after the Dominican Republic team lost to Netherlands in their first game everyone knew that it wasn’t going to be easy for the D.R. Puerto Rico had locked up the first seed but the second seed was still up for grabs. After the Dominican team beat Panama 9-0 all they had to do was get revenge and beat a Netherlands team with no MLB players. The score was 0-0 through 10 innings when the Dominican Republic scored in the top of the 11^th to lead 1-0. In the bottom of the inning the Netherlands tied up the game 1-1 and had a runner on third with two out when there was a line drive to first that went off the first baseman’s glove and rolled into foul territory. At that moment the celebration began. Who would’ve dreamed that a team with no major league players could beat a team who was the favorite to win this competition and had multiple all-star players! After this amazing feat who knows what other unbelievable moments are yet to come. Tune in Saturday and Sunday, as the second round will start on ESPN and the MLB Network.

Josh Jakers

NYchalktalk.com