Brawl boosts WBC popularity in U.S.

Bringing the world closer together through baseball sure sounded like a good idea.

Of course, that was before most Americans found out how much other countries actually cared about beating them at their national pastime. First, Taiwan got caught trying to smuggle a few scouts disguised as umpires into a game to spy on South Korea before the start of the World Baseball Classic. Then Canada and Mexico staged a full-scale brawl in the ninth-inning of their WBC encounter Saturday in Phoenix. While the Taiwanese-South Korea tiff melted away following a diplomatic apology, not so the rumble between the neighbours on either side of the U.S. border. Video of the brawl went viral, and while it may not have been the kind of publicity Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig had in mind when he started the WBC in 2006, it’s created more attention on these shores for this year’s event than the two previous tournaments combined. Suddenly, it’s game on.

“Amazing, wasn’t it, the way that woke everybody up around here?” said Bobby Valentine, who’s managed three MLB clubs as well as Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines.

Valentine happened to be in Japan during the weekend, where interest in the two-time defending champions is already off the charts.

“It’s the same game everywhere, but a different experience watching over there,” Valentine added. “Baseball has so many unwritten rules that we — meaning Americans — just take nuances like hitting a batter for granted. But once you see it played elsewhere, and see it played with the same kind of passion but a different perspective on some things, you start to wonder, ‘Who writes those so-called unwritten rules? And who bothers to read them?’ ”

Certainly not the Mexican team. Canada led off the ninth ahead 9-3, but because the WBC employs run-differential as a tiebreaker, they were still looking to pad their margin. Catcher Chris Robinson led off by bunting down the third-base line. The tactic so infuriated Mexico third baseman Luis Cruz, who thought the Canadians were trying to show his team up, that he locked eyes with his pitcher, Arnold Leon, then pointed to his side and basically instructed his pitcher to plunk the next batter. Leon complied, though he needed three pitches to hit Canada’s Rene Tosoni. That cleared both benches.

Mexico manager Rick Renteria conceded afterward his players probably had no idea that the run-differential rule was in place, and if WBC officials are smart, they’ll replace it with a less-combustible tiebreaker. At least those same officials didn’t exacerbate the bad feelings by handing out suspensions, which would have proved meaningless. Mexico was eliminated in that loss and the Canadians got bumped in their next game by the U.S.