Brawl Breathes Life into the WBC

Published by Jake English at March 10, 2013

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WBC Brawl between Canada and Mexico renews questions about player safety.

The brawl between Canada and Mexico in the World Baseball Classic has breathed new life into the tournament, but will also lead to renewed criticism.

In recent episodes, we’ve openly mocked the World Baseball Classic as being irrelevant, but I have to amdit that I’ve watched a couple of the games. I can’t tell whether I tune in to hear the melodious sounds of Gary Thorne calling a game, or to watch the US prove that we can’t win the only “world series” to which we invite other countries to participate.

I’ve had a couple of “discussions” with my wife (spoiler alert: she wins) about the WBC. She hates it, and can’t wait for the US to be eliminated, so that Adam Jones can return safely to Sarasota. I wasn’t really concerned about Jones’ health until I watched the Canada/Mexico debacle.

First of all, that has to be one of the best baseball brawls I’ve seen. That aside, player safety was a real concern tonight. Not only was the brawl unusually physical (let’s face it, these are usually more bark than bite), but the crowd started throwing things at the Canadian dugout. This easily could have gotten out of hand. How many pairs of pants did MLB executives go through tonight? I wouldn’t classify Canada/Mexico as a rivalry. This is a game where I would least expect a brawl, which just goes to show that freak incidents like this can happen at any time.

So yes, I love my country as much as the next guy, but I will not be disappointed at all to see Team USA go home. The Orioles need the face of their franchise back.