America is strong, but both Japan and Korea really shined. You are going to see some pick ups from both countries after this series into the Major Leagues.

This is only the second WBC, and Japan has won both times.

The top baseball playing nations are Korea, Japan, Cuba, the United States, and the Dominican Republic. Until this WBC, Cuba had not missed a final round since 1959 in an international tournament.

It actually is similar to the Basketball situation. While the best position players elect to play, the pitchers generally don't. Also, the Korean, Japanese, and Cuban national teams all play together more often than the US. The US national team is a hodge podge put together shortly before each tournament. Most of the Korean and Japanese team also played on their respective Olympic teams.

However, none of the US WBC team did because the Olympic national team is composed of minor league players because the MLB will not suspend its regular season for the Olympics. The Korean and Japanese leagues do. At the Olympic tournament Korea won gold over Cuba while the United States defeated Japan for bronze.

Stereotypical much?

I watched every single game played by Team Japan... including the ones which started at 3AM local time.

The Korea vs Japan games were starting to wear thin but after watching the semi finals vs Team USA, it was nice to see a pair of teams who were dead serious about this competition and were willing to do anything to win.

It's also nice to see Ichiro breaking out of his slump in the finals. He's got a pretty big mouth during the classics but at least he's got the talent to back it up.

Forgive me for not knowing anything about baseball.

I just assumed that because the US major league was the most well known baseball comp and that I've never really known baseball to be a sport played seriously by other the Americans and the Japanese, that the US was the best.

Because South Korea won the gold at baseball in the Beijing Olympics last year, I thought that they would win the WBC, not Japan. When Japan were lined up against Cuba and the USA in the WBC, I thought Japan would lose because they lost to both in the Olympics last year. But it's good to see Japan beat their rivals South Korea and make up for not even getting a medal in last year's Olympics. おめでとう、日本！！:pandahurray: