Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Twilight of the Idols

South Korea 7, USA 3.

"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains."

~~~ Nuke LaLoosh

It's easy for Nuke to wax philosophical. He may have thrown like a spastic high school girl in the movie, but at least his team hadn't just been beaten by the South Koreans.

I guess we all have to thank Proud to Be Your Bud Selig for the WBC. If nothing else, it laid to rest that baseball is the American pasttime and that everyone else is looking up at us. Not so. The Koreans and Canadians must be wondering what the hell happened to the Americans. The Cubans have to be worried that they'll never get to humiliate the capitalist pigs in this tournament (although they've had big troubles of their own---the good news is no one has defected yet).

What happened? Well, it starts with the pitching. Dontrelle Willis just hasn't been consistent. He's suffered both losses in the tourney, and he's not pitched well. In fact, he's sucked. Manager Buck Martinez said he hasn't lost faith in him and that he'll get another start. Good luck Buck. You have to win to get another game to let him pitch again, unless of course you're happy playing some consolation game for grins. Buck also contributed to the loss by making a number of questionable decisions about his lineup and his use of pitchers. Specifically, in addition to keeping Dontrelle in the game too long, he kept his best hitter, Derrek Lee, on the bench and didn't use Michael Young.

Before he manages another game in this tournament, he may want to give Hank Iba a call. He needs to understand how America treats its vanquished coaches.


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Martinez should be fired. I'd have those guys hustling.

Anonymous said...

He should be kicked out of baseball.

Hornless Rhino said...

Nah, it isn't Buck's fault. He was handed a turd burger by Bud Selig. This stupid exhibition series is quietly hated by most of the MLB clubs, and openly hated by the brave few, like the Yankees. The players have had no spring training, the short tournament format isn't appropriate (as a comment to a prior post noted), and half of the best players decided to bag it anyway.

Just keep your fingers crossed that none of the Tribe players who are in this silly thing get hurt.

Anonymous said...

I blame Barry Bonds for this nonsense.

Anonymous said...

It's George Bush's fault.

Anonymous said...

George Bush hates black people