Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Has anyone considered a World Baseball Classic based roster theme league? Is it workable? I am going to study the rosters and see if this theme has any chance! Any feedback is welcome. Thanks!

Sounds interesting but I don't think you will find enough players to fill 12 teams from 12 different countries.

This would be quite a lineup.

Dominican Republic

20 Ronnie Belliard
29 Adrian Beltre
7 Pedro Feliz
34 David Ortiz
2 Placido Polanco
5 Albert Pujols
9 Jose Reyes
10 Miguel Tejada

18 Moises Alou
19 Juan Encarnacion
Vladimir Guerrero
26 Wily Mo Pena
4 Willy Taveras

I'm seeing a chance to make this work. Each team would need a set number (10-12 players) from country of origin. Other roster spots could be filled from free agents. I see 6 natural teams ...

1-THE ORIENT
2-PUERTO RICO
3-PANAMA
4-CANADA
5-MEXICO
6-VENEZUELA

plus ...

7- USA #1
8- USA #2
9- DOMINICAN REPUBLIC #1
10- DOMINICAN REPUBLIC #2

maybe Venezuela could field 2 teams also (?) USA # 3 ?

I'll keep researching. Any good sites for listing MLB players by country of origin?


[code:1:387afb6d07][/code:1:387afb6d07]

[quote:2cd7b4f71c="John Law"]
1-THE ORIENT[/quote:2cd7b4f71c]

Is this a Back to the 50s league? :roll:

Rant, Don't get PC on us about the Oriental players. That whole area is sometimes called the Orient and sometimes Asia and probably some other terms all meaning the same thing.

They are not Asian-Americans. Why are people called African-American, Asian-American, Latin-American anyway? If you are a citizen of this country then you are just an American, period. We all came from somewhere but I would not like to be called European-American.

Can I be referred to as a Hillbilly-American?

I haven't seen Orient used in well over 5 years, except by some pretty old people who won't call it anythin else.... I think that's the point

I used the term "The Orient" after "seconds of thought" in a quick post at work to group Japan / Chinese Taipei / Korea. Would "Far East" have been more appropriate? I guess I haven't heard "Orient" used recently either. Anyway, earlier posts gave me a reason to visit the definition.

"The term is derived from the Latin word oriens, which is the present participle of "orior": to rise. The implication is the rising sun, hence the use of orient to describe the "land of the rising sun", ie the Far East. The opposite term "Occident" - derived from the Latin word occidens, from the verb "occido": I fall - was once used to describe the western world, ie the "land of the falling (setting) sun", but has fallen into disuse."

I think I will continue to work on a structure to explore this theme. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks! Here's an article this morning still talking about the WBC.


Blame Canada (and all the World Baseball Classic nations)

By Larry Dobrow
Special to CBS SportsLine.com

It's all the World Baseball Classic's fault. Everything.

High gas prices. Iranian nuclear recalcitrance. That speeding ticket I almost received for driving 75 mph in a 40-mph zone (telling the officer that I have "problem diarrhea" and was rushing to a nearby rest stop got me out of that one). The World Baseball Classic is to blame for all of this and more.

Like the state of your roto pitching staff. By whisking routine-dependent hurlers like Brad Lidge, Chad Cordero and Oliver Perez out of their spring-training cocoons, the WBC totally cornholed their 2006 chances. Jake Peavy's ERA has surged to an intolerably high 3.77. Think this would've happened if he'd been hanging out in Arizona and eating his every meal at Chili's? I think not.

Too, the WBC sank more than its share of able batsmen. Jason Bay hasn't been driving the ball, which is clearly attributable to the 15-odd days he spent with Team Canada. Plus look at the WBC participants currently residing on the disabled list: Derrek Lee, Moises Alou, Javy Lopez. Never mind that each went down courtesy of an in-game trauma of some sort. They played in the WBC and that's why they got hurt.

Had Hideki Matsui not bailed on his native Japan and ducked the tourney, imagine how much more severe his wrist injury would have been. One word: amputation.

Sure, WBC chuckers Johan Santana and Carlos Zambrano seem back on track after slow starts, plus even mechanics-impaired ace Dontrelle Willis threw well against the Bravos on Tuesday. And fine, maybe a few WBC guys are having mildly OK offensive campaigns: Albert Pu-hole, Andruw Jones, Miguel Tejada, Vernon Wells, Carlos Lee, Derek Jeter. But just as many aren't. Really. Ask anyone.

So I thereby conclude, with great vengeance and furious anger, that the World Baseball Classic is the root of all roto evil. Blaming others and misidentifying causation: It's the American way.