by Riccardo Schiroli
I was just not ready for Taiwan to be out of the tournament. I was at the early stages of discovering what the cheerleading crew actually shouts. I did not go beyond “Let’s go Taiwan”.
The organizers of the Premier12 shared my disappointment but for different reasons. With Taiwan out, they lost a very good chance of selling tickets. The second chance they lost, is because they forgot to charge the Korean press. I counted 22 reporters and 8 photographers Monday night.
The quarter final game between Cuba and Korea was actually played in a pretty depressing environment, since concession stands were closed and the “Intercontinental Stadium” staff got started with the closing duties well before the final out of the game. It was good for the McDonald’s franchisee that is closest to the stadium. After the Korean press placed their order, they actually ran out of Big Macs.
WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari didn’t have a clue about the concession stands not opening. He actually ate photographer’s Ezio Ratti’s french fries. Actually complaining because they were kind of cold. He may have thought the fries were a VIP compliment.
I wrote that I was rooting for Mexico and Mexico gave some feed back, qualifying for the semi finals.
I wouldn’t dare say that Mexico is not wanted, but what I sense is the same tight atmosphere that I felt when I broke the news that Italy had qualified to some friends who were amongst the organizers of the Miami round robin in the 2013 World Baseball Classic. Not Mexico. Not even Canada.
Here we have Mexico. Not Taiwan, not even Canada. Not even The Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Canada and The Kingdom are the biggest disappointments, so far. I mean, the way they played, you would have expected to see them perform in Tokyo. What happened is that Canada blew a game because of 2 defensive errors by their shortstop Jamieson. He had 6 errors in 266 innings at AA Mobile (Diamondbacks) this season and now he kills Canada with 2 in the same game? That was really unlikely. Almost as unlikely as the bad decision by veteran Pete Orr (over 400 games played in the Bigs) to try to double up the runner to first after getting the force out at third on a sacrifice bunt. Don’t try too hard, Pete. Baseball Gods may turn their backs…
What happened to The Kingdom of the Netherlands is that they thought they could muscle their way to the final. And on the given they their bats were not on fire, they actually lost. I am not talking about the quarter final game against Team USA. Losing an elimination game against Team USA is something that can happen. They shouldn’t have lost the game against Canada. Or maybe, they shouldn’t have lost the game against Cuba. That would have changed a lot. Probably also for the home team Taiwan. But I am possibly going too far.
Nonetheless, Cuba is another great story. Great and sad.
I grew up taking for granted that Cuba was going to win anyway and it is surprising (at least to me) that we won’t see Cuba competing for another title.
Whatever the management of Cuba says, the real problem is that over 100 of their most talented players defected in the last 12 months. What kind of team could Cuba field, if they had a chance to pick amongst these guys? Right handed pitcher Yasel Sierra and lefty Martinez Wong may have been pretty good arms for Victor Mesa. Who may have used also teen age phenom Adrian Morejon, whom MLB scouts believe is “the real deal” amongst defectors.
As for Mesa, he has 2 nicknames: El Loco (the mad man) and La explosion naranja (the orange explosion). You may think he well deserves both, when you see him yell at his center fielder for losing a ball in the sun and then you see him call for a replacement right away.
I’ll be back from Tokyo.
Photo by Ezio Ratti, FIBS