First, a quick note for Gary Thorne. The World Baseball Classic is not “The Classic.” Nobody calls it that but you. Also, I think after listening to you and Steve Philips, I now know how painful Joe Morgan and Steve Philips will be each week on Sunday Night Baseball. At least I’ve been warned now to buy earplugs for the entire season since I don’t think the mute button will be powerful enough to shut the two of them up.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, can we also stop saying that any of the injuries that happened at the WBC could just as easily have happened in Spring Training? There’s a major flaw in this line from Bud Selig. Any player in the WBC wants to win every one of these games. They will push themselves hard like a normal game because they care, and they’re competitive. As David Wright said, “We’re taking this very seriously. This isn’t an exhibition to us.” Funny, that sounds like the exact opposite of Spring Training. ST is all about slowly working up to game-speed. And when you start playing full-speed when you’re only half-ready, you’re way more likely to get hurt.

Let’s take the AL MVP for example. He pulled a muscle taking extra BP. Would this injury have happened if he was taking extra BP in Fort Myers? Probably. Oh, but wait a minute, if this was just ST, then he wouldn’t be taking extra BP after playing three full games. He’d have played in 5-6 innings, and gone golfing like the rest of the players do at ST.

So for everyone who says that Pedroia, Youk, Braun, Lindsrom, and Chipper Jones would all have been hurt if they were playing in Spring Training, you’re only correct about Chipper.

Oh yeah, and that US-Puerto Rico game was fantastic. I’ll admit it, I cheered when Jon Sciambi butchered the call (the game was simulcast on ESPN Radio). I was planning on waiting in the car to hear the end of the 9th if it hadn’t ended 2 minutes before pulling into the driveway (I love baseball, but I’m not paying Comcast an extra $25/month for the MLB channel). Maybe if the US was playing 25 on 25, it wouldn’t have been such a good ending. So Bud gets what he wants yet again.

UPDATE: And now the news comes out that Youk sprained his ankle so badly he could barely walk out of the clubhouse, but he played on it for the past two games. Riiight, like he would have continued playing on a hurt ankle and injured himself more if he was still in Spring Training. Can we call Selig’s company line complete and utter bullshit yet?