Team Japan wins WBC !!!!!

Man you gotta love Ohtsuka when he struck the guy out for the final out!

Nippon ichiban!

Way to go Japan!

Congratulations Team Japan from Yankeeland, USA. You remind me of our great players of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. And by that I do NOT mean you are 50 years behind us. I seriously believe the great American teams of those decades, if time-transported to the present, would spank the leading American teams of today with their true, non-chemically-enhanced athleticism.

Ichiro, Uehara and the others show us that honest, fundamentally-sound, intelligent "small ball" will always beat lazy, unthinking, non-stop swinging for the fences. And, yes, the World Champion Japanese did beat the USA players head-to-head in this tournament, even if they did lose to the USA umpires. Please come back in '09 and give us another lesson. Maybe after that we will take a real look at ourselves and play the game right.

It was good game. Daisuke was pitching excellent and gave doubters of his abilities the chance to shine. I'm glad he got the MVP, though in my mind it could have been a toss up between Uehara and Tamura as well.

Well, what can one say? Even in hockey-crazy Canada we yakyuu fans are shouting and spilling the beer. Japan is NUMBER ONE! Matsuzaka, Fukudome, Uehara, Satozaki, Ichiro, Oh-kantoku... yoku dekimashita!

よくがんばりました！すごい！かちましたよ！
ヤッタ！

日本おめでとうございます！

Now it's on to the regular NPB season and let's go Tigers!

"Rokko oroshi ni..."

Tamura did well, but not MVP type good. I thought it was a toss up with Uehara, Matsuzaka, Ichiro, and Matsunaka. But you can't forget Mr. clutch, Fukudome!

Not sure if I'm reading your post correctly, but Tamura didn't win the MVP award, Matsuzaka did.

What a great moment for Japan! We were in for a massive challenge against Korea and Cuba, but we did it. No words can describe how proud I am of our team.

Perhaps pictures [From Fox Sports] can:

I know that Matsuzaka won the MVP award. I'm just saying that it could have been a toss up between Uehara and Tamura to get that honor on top of Matsuzaka as well.

Fukudome did well in the latter rounds, but wasn't consistant for the whole tournament. And I would vouch for Matsunaka because he was able to get on base safely in all the games and led the team with 11 runs scored. But Matsunaka didn't knock in many runs.

Congradulations to Team Japan. You owe a VERY BIG thank you to Mexico. Team Japan wouldn't have had a "third shot" at Korea in the semi-finals if Mexico had lost to the States.

Guest, read the posts above.

Fantastic result! Simply fantastic! Great team effort with all the team pitching in at some point.

A proud day for all of Japanese baseball and it's fans. Hopefully it'll start to get the respect it deserves from here on in.

Detroit Piston Rasheed Wallace has a saying for opponants who miss free throws on questionable fouls: "The ball don't lie!" I think it fits Japan's WBC experience, too. After getting jobbed by a horrible call against USA, they got a second life when the Americans couldn't beat a Mexican team they should've crushed, and made the most of it.

Ball don't lie.

Congratulations! That was a fun game, despite Japan never giving up the lead, Cuba kept on fighting back to make things tense and real interesting. It was amazing how quickly the Cubans adapted to Watanabe's submarine pitches. But it's sweet when Japan's bats finally woke up in the semi-finals. Very timely, like when Team Sweden came together for the final tournament in Olympic hockey just recently at Torino. It's all about peaking at the right time at these short international best on best tournaments.

And hopefully this will lead to Americans taking their own WBC more seriously in the future, along with a barrage of changes to enhance the event (international umpires, timing, rules review - having pitching limitations along with extra innings is unfair for teams that get into extra innings games, etc.).

Congratulations to Japan, from the American desert!

I loved the way the Japanese team played, their defensive stops were amazing. I am hoping that we will see more agility in our American players now as well, rather than just steroids and home runs.

Again, congratulations on a well-earned victory!

Congratulations to Japan! from another USA fan. We Americans have to face facts. We are not even close to being the best in baseball right now. Team Japan proved to the world what the readers of this website already know - they are better than the rest of the world.

What a great final game and a wonderful tournament. I went to three games in Anaheim, including two Team Japan games, and loved every minute. I was sitting in the right field bleachers where Ichiro's home run landed in game one of the second round. In fact I would have caught it if I brought my glove. (I didn't want to risk breaking my hand - it was a rocket!)

What a thrill to see the Japanese players that we talk about on this site in person.

After witnessing the first WBC I have a few modest proposals. This is what I would do if I was the Director of the World Baseball Classic: Next time I want the WBC to be hosted by Nippon Professional Baseball and not the MLB. I also want this to happen every four years so it doesn't lose it's special appeal. I want to see a round robin tournament in round one and then the eight teams left after round one would be in a double elimination tournament. The top two teams would play in a best 2 out of 3 series. I also want to see this tournament in the middle of the season. All the leagues would shut down for two weeks, and since it is in the middle of the season, eliminate the pitch limits.

I also want to see the MLB drop the name "World Series" from their championship series. The WBC tournament is the real World Series.

Anybody want to respond to this proposal? (Oh by the way, I want World Peace, too)

Allen
Fullerton, California, USA

- I also want to see the MLB drop the name "World Series" from their championship series.

I'm under the impression that it's not called the World Series because it decides the best team in the world, but because the company title of the sponsor of the series was "World." No?

- I'm under the impression that it's not called the World Series because it decides the best team in the world, but because the company title of the sponsor of the series was "World." No?

No, that's a myth. It was supposed to have been sponsored by the New York World newspaper, but there's no evidence of that.

It all started in 1884, when the Providence Grays of the National League won a three game series against the New York Metropolitan Club of the American Association. The series was originally called "The Championship of the United States," but it seems that several newspapers dubbed the Grays the "World Champions" and called the series the "World's Championship Series" - and the label stuck.

The actual term "World Series" was apparently first used in 1887 in the Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide.

Sources:

• Baseball Almanac
• Wikipedia
• The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary (1999)

Well there ya' go. 10 heeees for that one.

In that case, perhaps a more accurate appelation is in order.