At The Top Of Their Game

It's been a long time coming for the Japanese baseball team, but they've finally reached the top of the world by winning the World Baseball Classic.

They started sending professionals to the Intercontinental cup in 1999 and still couldn't win.
In the Sydney 2000 Olympics, half the squad consisted of professional players.
It was perhaps the first time Team Japan got serious; and yet Ichiro would not participate then because he felt the Olympics were for amateurs. Daisuke Matsuzaka on the other hand, came out to Sydney and pitched his heart out he was possibly the most important pitcher in the entire meet. And the Cubans beat Japan narrowly.

In 2004, Japan probabaly played the best baseball at Athens behind Daisuke Matsuzaka, they even beat Cuba; but they got bushwacked by the Australians twice which meant they tearfully played off for a Bronze. It was sad. You should go back through the July 2004 archives of the Spacefreaks blog to see what that was like for Daisuke Matsuzaka and company. The lesson Team Japan took away from the Bronze medal was that it's not how you play in the pools but how you get through the semifinal and the final.

This time with the World Baseball Classic, Team Japan finallly enlisted Ichiro, because they were going to go up against the Major Leaguers. Hideki Matsui declined because he has been in the hunt for a World Series win with the Yankees for 3 years and is yet to accomplish that mission (more power to him). Kenji Johjima cited his rcent signing across the Pacific to the Seattle Mariners, and so he too declined. And thus began Sadaharu Oh's haphazard journey to the WBC.

When the dust settled, they were playing Cuba in the finals and in some ways, that is probably more fitting in the arena of International Baseball - Because if the nations that have seriously contested for the crown in the International Baseball were listed, the top 3 nations would be Cuba, Japan, and Korea.

Without dumping on the Koreans who also played an amazing series of games (without a single error, it might be said and probably deserved to be there just as much), this was a final that was truly befitting the title of 'World Baseball Classic'; it had to be Cuba, and it had to be Japan who have been chasing Cuba since 1992.

Well, they finally got their dues. So congratulations to Japan, but in particular, congratulations to Daisuke Matsuzaka, MVP of the Inaugural WBC, who finally reached the top of the world.



My mother is so proud of you... Now go and pitch for the Yankees, damnit! :)

UPDATE:
Here's what Jason Stark had to write about the final. It's quite nice:

SAN DIEGO -- Unbeknownst to most of North America, they've been playing baseball in Japan since the 19th century. Thankfully for North America, they've given us Nomo-mania and Ichiro and Hideki Matsui.

But in the long and glorious history of Japanese baseball, there has never been an evening quite like this one.

In a ballpark nearly 5,500 miles from home, men named Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka and the great Sadaharu Oh stood along the third-base line at Petco Park on Monday night, showered in confetti, as Bud Selig and Don Fehr hung gold medals round their necks.
All around them, flags waved, whistles filled the night and flash bulbs popped.

The World Baseball Classic was over. And the last team standing wasn't the United States or Venezuela or the Dominican Republic.

It was, instead, this team from Japan -- another one of those nations that has learned to love baseball more than we Americans do.

Off in the distance, the scoreboard spread the news: Japan 10, Cuba 6, in the WBC title game. And that term, "world champions," finally had a whole new meaning.

We know there are people out there -- lots of them -- who will say that this event proved nothing about who the best team in the world really is.

But "looking at today's results," smiled Japan's center fielder, Kosuke Fukudome, "I'd say it was Japan."

As it turned out, Japan lost more games in this tournament (three) than Korea (one) or the Dominican (two) -- but somehow, neither of those teams even made it to the finals.

The Japanese did, though. Somehow or other.

They got this far even though they actually had a losing record in Round Two (1-2).

And so it goes. There's also a Jim Caple article on Daisuke Matsuzaka.
This bit made me laugh:

Matsuzaka has been famous in Japan ever since an almost inconceivable performance in the country's important Koshein high school baseball tournament, which is the equivalent of our NCAA basketball tournament. Matsuzaka threw a 250-pitch, 17-inning complete game in the semifinal and then pitched a no-hitter in the final. He threw close to 400 pitches in two days.

And here's the really amazing part: Dusty Baker wasn't his manager.

Heh. Funny man.