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World Baseball Classic

Perhaps you’ve noticed, but one of my favorite things to do on Peace & Glove is link to a movie or TV clip to help illustrate a point. I’ve constructed entire posts around a link I wanted to use. If you clicked on the links in my movie review post, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Recently a good friend, whom I refer to as "The Dude", complimented me on that post. When I asked what he thought of the links, he said he hadn’t even clicked on them. I guess that was more of a compliment than anything -- he took the time to let me know he enjoyed the post, but didn't take the steps to truly "get" the post. I don’t know, maybe this is all for personal enjoyment and you, the reader, do not care a lick about the links. That's fine; personal enjoyment was my one and only goal when I started this blog!

The reason I’m sharing this info is because I thought I had a great link to use in a post about the World Baseball Classic. Regular readers may have grasped by now that my long-term memory consists largely of quotes and one-liners from classic movies and TV shows. So when I thought about doing a post on the World Baseball Classic (WBC), a classic Chris Rock/Chris Farley "Saturday Night Live" skit (an urban version of this classic) immediately came to mind. However, my faded memory thought the name of this skit was "We Be Chillin’" -- and how perfect that would be to segue into the WBC.

This was such a good idea that I convinced myself before I even looked it up that I was correct. Turns out I was wrong. I was close, but I was wrong. I was right about who starred in the skit, but the skit actually was called "I’m Chillin’", so it doesn't work as a tie-in to the World Baseball Classic.

However, one of the great things about being a blogger (instead of an actual writer) is that I can babble on for as long as I like and share the links I wanted to anyway! :)

Now, on to the World Baseball Classic. The WBC is played every three years and consists of 16 teams from around the world. Those 16 teams are broken up into four "pools," with two teams from each pool advancing to the second round, during which they are split into another two pools. Defending champion Japan and the Netherlands already have advanced from Pool 1 in Round 2 to the championship round. Pool 2 consists of Team USA , Italy, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. That pool has begun play, which concludes Saturday (March 16) when two of those teams advance.

The Brewers originally had 15 players set to play on eight different WBC teams, but injuries and other issues reduced that to 12 players on six teams. After Round 1, seven of those players returned to camp. If you want a complete breakdown of the Brewers players in the WBC, check out this post from Brewer Nation.

I would love to watch as many of these games as possible, but unfortunately technology out on the farm hasn’t caught up to the rest of the world. So, other than our smartphones we don’t have internet access and I don't believe in paying for television. I’m left to follow the games on my Twitter feed which, not surprisingly, provides up-to-the-minute updates so it’s almost like I’m watching -- but it’s not quite the same. I’m sure if Mr. Braun, Mr. Lucroy and Team USA make it to the finals I will make it over to The Bullpen's couch for some HD viewing.

Is anyone rooting for one country over another? Or maybe for a favorite player? Is anyone even interested in the WBC?

Tim Thompson is a carsalesman, farmer, and huge fan of the Milwaukee Brewers. He lives in Milton area with his wife and two kids. Tim is a community blogger and is not a part of The Gazette staff. His opinion is not necessarily that of the The Gazette staff or management.