World Baseball Classic (WBC) tournament starts Monday, March 6, and concludes March 22 in Dodger Stadium. This is the fourth and the three previous winning countries have been Japan, Japan, Dominican Republic.
What the heck? How has the USA not won? We now expect to not take the tournament seriously.
In recent years about 72 percent of major league players were born in the USA.
Most significant WBC players have played major league U.S. ball.
Just given that, shouldn't the USA team be reasonably expected to win about 72% of its games? Shouldn't team USA have won at least two of the three tournaments played so far? Should we expect team USA to finally win this tournament?
Best player in the world: Mike Trout, not playing for team USA.
Best pitcher in the world: Clayton Kershaw, not playing for team USA.
But even without them and some other top USA players, shouldn't the USA be the heavy favorite?
We're protecting ourselves by not expecting victory. But when team USA is on the field and we're watching, we'll be rooting and wanting victory. That's good and also natural.
So, instead of: usa, usa, usa. It should be:
USA! USA! USA!
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