Chipper Jones, feeling a bit assholish due to a strained oblique he suffered during the World Baseball Classic, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Monday that the week he stayed in Toronto reminded him of several prostate examinations in quick succession, or words to that effect.

Jones, who also played in the inaugural WBC in 2006, said he won't play again if the format isn't changed. "Just way too many days off," he said. "We stayed in Toronto for a week and played three games. I don't know if you ever stayed in Toronto, but it's not exactly Las Vegas. To say that we were plucking our eyebrows out one at a time would be an understatement."

Toronto bloggers, being the gentle souls that they are, totally forgave him and wished him all the best.

• Alright, look, I don't know... if you don't like a city, I guess you don't like a city. But still. Y'know, fuck you, Chipper. I'm 99% sure you weren't even trying... Yeah, because Atlanta is practically fucking Vegas— just, instead of casinos and whores it's got waffle houses and meth labs. Totally the same. [Drunk Jays Fan]

• And fuck you too Chipper. Here is hoping for some reason he has to come back. Please let him come back. Funny how other athletes come here and don't seem to complain. Not enough hot spots for ya Chipper like there are in Atlanta?? Downtown Atlanta is a real thriller. Here's hoping Bobby Cox gets to him and talks some sense into him before he opens his trap again. Somewhere I bet JP is laughing or cheering him on. [Toronto Sports Media]

• First of all, Chipper is in the NL, so not used to the neighbourhoods of the city. Second of all, he is on a team with unfamiliar teammates that don't really want to go out with a hitless wonder from a city with clearly the worst night-time downtown core in the league. [Blue Jays Baseball Blog]

• Maybe Chipper wasn't so chipper about his stay here in Hogtown because he sucked so bad: He went 0-for-10 with six strikeouts in three games for Team USA. Just for the record Chipper, this is the kind of stuff you could have been doing while you were here. Get cultured my boy, and don't waste so much time plucking. [My Hogtown]

And Chris Bosh even chimed in, via the National Post.

"Me and Chipper should have hung out," Bosh said at the Raptors' practice on Wednesday. "He should have called me. I'd have shown him a good time."

Chipper Jones Not So Chipper About Toronto, Toronto Not So Chipper About Chipper Jones [My Hogtown]
Chris Bosch Defends Toronto's Honour Against Chipper Jones [The National Post]
Chipper Positive He Will Heal Under Braves' Care [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

Thankfully, Puerto Rico will never be granted statehood or independence, so technically the United States beat itself by 10 runs in the World Baseball Classic further solidifying the mainland's awesomeness. U.S.A.! (and its territories!) U.S.A.! (and its territories!)

On the other hand, both teams are stacked with Major League talent and if Jake Peavy loses to Javier Vazquez sometime in July or August, no one will bat an eye, proving again that the whole thing is lark that should not be taken seriously. Unless you lose to the Netherlands. That would be so humiliating for the country that took another country's sport and modified the rules slightly to suit its own peculiar tastes. I don't even know who we are anymore.

Puerto Rico thrash U.S. at World Baseball Classic [Reuters]
The US Was Whipped, Tarred, and Made to Look Silly... [Oriole Post]
WBC Scoreboard [MLB]

Not to be a wet blanket here, but there's something a little unsettling about the sudden Rudyfication of the Netherlands team - a process that reached its zenith with today's New York Times weepy about the general manager and his late son, who died of cancer six years ago. The Dutch have put up some atrocious numbers so far, hitting as a team like nine Neifi Perezes (.157 with a .385 OPS through five games); on the mound they have more walks than strikeouts. (And not to go all Franz Fanon on you, but considering that 11 of the team's 26 players hail from the old slave-trading outposts in the Dutch Caribbean, doesn't this team belong as much to the West India Company as it does to the Netherlands?)

Team Netherlands is a big honkballing symbol of the major underlying flaw with the WBC, which is that a single baseball game is basically a dice roll and says little about who's actually better. This makes for a lot of delirious fun — witness the Dutch upsets of the Dominican Republic –- but it's also deeply problematic, at least if the tournament's ever going to be anything more than a triennial curio. As Joe Sheehan noted the other day, the WBC desperately needs to add some sort of qualifying round, which would help weed out weaker teams, like the Netherlands. It would also lend some credence to the currently laughable notion that the event is a meeting of "the best baseball-playing nations in the world," as the WBC's site puts it, rather than a crass collection of emerging baseball markets that the MLB hopes one day to exploit (China, come on down!). By allowing so much mediocrity to wreak havoc on its brackets, the WBC is exposing itself as less a sporting event than a trade summit with eyeblack.

Everyone just assumed last weekend's 3-2 victory by the Dutch team was a fluke, probably helped by the D.R.'s bad hotel arrangements. When they met again in last night's elimination game, surely the better team would prevail. Then Ubaldo Jimenez struck out 10 in the first four innings and then he got replaced by Pedro Freakin' Martinez who started mowing down batters himself and it seemed like that should have been enough. But somehow it was the 11th inning and the score was still tied at zero? Then former Oriole Gene Kingsale—one of the few Dutch players to have actually seen The Show—let a routine base hit get behind him and Jose Reyes scrambled around from first and all was right in the world.

Yet, here we are this morning and the Dominican Republic is eliminated from the WBC before it even really started. Kingsale drove in the tying run in the bottom of the inning, scrambled to third on a wild pickoff throw, then scored the winning run on an error by Willy Aybar. It's not a fluke anymore. The Netherlands is the greatest baseball country in the world. The Dominicans might as well just close up their whole island. (Yes, Haiti too.)

Seriously though, that's pretty impressive. Randall Simon? Gene Kingsale? Yurendell de Caster?

Netherlands' prayers answered [ESPN]
No excuse for Dominican performance in WBC [Fox]
Hail to the Dutch [Seattle Times]
The Netherlands is Known for Bicycles, Clogs, Windmills, Cheese, and OWNING THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC! [Vent About Sports]
Jimenez sets Classic strikeout record [MLB]
Dutch Fans Celebrate WBC Performance [Gunaxin]

Amusingly, the Italian team is nicknamed The Azzurri, a name which is usually reserved for Italy's national soccer team. But most of their World Baseball Classic roster have most likely never set foot on Italian soil. Winning pitcher Dan Serafini, for instance, is a name you probably recognize. Serafini grew up in San Francisco and played prep ball at Serra High in San Mateo, where I coached him as a freshman in basketball. How Italian is Serafini? Let's just say there were no translation problems. He was a tall, amiable kid who was my backup center, and had a slight future in basketball until someone saw him throw a baseball. Serafini signed out of high school with the Minnesota Twins, played nine seasons in the majors and has been in the minors since testing positive for steroids in 2007.

Serafini started and got the win on Monday as Italy eliminated Canada, 6-2. All three Italian pitchers were born in the U.S.; Chris Cooper, a minor leaguer from 2001-06 who played in Italy last year, relieved Serafini, and Jason Grilli, a member of the Colorado Rockies, got the save.

So what are the eligibility rules in the World Baseball Classic anyway? Apparently anyone who has an Italian surname, or has appeared on an episode of The Sopranos, is Italian. Actually, the eligibility rules are thus:

A: A player is eligible to participate on a World Baseball Classic team if:

• The player is a citizen of the nation the team represents. (Additionally, if a player is qualified for citizenship or to hold a passport under the laws of a nation represented by a team, but has not been granted citizenship or been issued a passport, then the player may be made eligible by WBCI upon petition by the player or team.
• The player is a permanent legal resident of the nation or territory the team represents.
• The player was born in the nation or territory the team represents.
• The player has one parent who is, or if deceased was, a citizen of the nation the team represents.
• The player has one parent who was born in the nation or territory the team represents.

So a player "qualified for citizenship" is in, even if that player has never even visited that nation. I suppose Serafini qualifies, but he's spent more actual time in Japan (three seasons in the Japanese League) than he has in Italy. In fact, the Italian National team has 15 players on U.S. professional rosters — Major Leaguers Nick Punto of the Twins and Grilli among them — versus only 10 actual native Italians.

But that's nothing: The Canadian roster is populated with 24 pro U.S. players, among them Justin Morneau, Jason Bay and Russell Martin. The Dominican Republic has 22 (23 if one counts Moises Alou), Mexico has 19, The Netherlands 11 (including the very Dutch Juan Carlos Sulbaran), Australia 17, Panama 18, Puerto Rico 22, South Africa 6, Taiwan 9 and Venezuela 17.

The result is a kind of exotic Major League spring training B squad. Couldn't we save a lot of time and money and just play all the games in Florida? WBC organizers would say that would be contrary to their mission statement: To "increase global interest and introduce new fans and players to the game." Fans, maybe, although SportsCenter probably does a much more thorough job with none of the time and expense. As for the players, for the most part they're already here.

Mamma Mia! Italy Knocks Team Canada Out Of The World Baseball Classic [The Canadian Press]
World Baseball Classic FAQ [WorldBaseballClassic.com]

Lasorda gave fans of the World Baseball Classic U.S. team a pep talk from the observation deck of the Empire State Building (don't ask), where he uttered the following quote:

"We cannot allow those clubs to beat us. It's our game," the former Los Angeles Dodgers manager said Thursday. "Remember one thing: In your hearts, you better pull for the USA or you may not get into heaven."

"It's our game. Baseball is America's game. It doesn't belong to the Italians or the Cubans or the Koreans or the Japanese," he said. "It's our game, and we're not going to let them beat us."

I'm not sure what I can do from where I am, but if affixing this tiny American flag to my car antennae will help, then OK. The U.S. opened the tournament on Thursday with a 4-0 win over China in Tokyo. Obviously the godless Chinese will not get into heaven. I wonder if Dave Kingman will?

Tommy Lasorda Waves The Flag For Team USA [The Sporting News]

A-Rod will travel to Colorado to see a hip specialist and may miss this very important international exhibition. If that wasn't terrible enough, his manager Joe Girardi says that Alex had hip problems last season, but selfishly ignored that pain so that he could stay on the field. (Ok, I added the "selfishly" part.) Why can't he even get hurt properly?

Even worse than the stupid injury, however, was that A-Rod had the temerity to compliment his Dominican Republic teammate Jose Reyes—a shortstop and a Met—by saying, "I wish he was leading off on our team, playing on our team." Geez, why don't you just take out your cock and piss all over Derek Jeter's grave while you're at it? He also called David Ortiz—a Red Sox! (or is it Sock?)—a "true friend." Who does this a-hole think he is? Lou Gehrig did not get a disease named after him and then bravely die from it so that some roid rage freak could blatantly violate the chastity of New York Yankees baseball.

Is there anything this guy can't do wrong?

Yanks may ask A-Rod to skip Classic [MLB]
Girardi says hip bothered A-Rod last year [AP]
A-Rod: I wish the Yankees had Jose Reyes [Newsday]

"I still don't have an offer, and I shouldn't be looking for offers out there," said Sosa, the National League MVP in 1998 and the only hitter to surpass 60 or more homers in a season on three occasions. "Any team who wants to sign me should have the initiative and make an offer."

Sosa is hoping to catch on with the Dominican entry into the World Baseball Classic, which is only a couple months away. Physical attributes aside, it's questionable whether Sosa is a box-office asset. As one of the living artifacts of a performance-enhancement era baseball seems all too eager to bury, Sosa might want to brush up on his language skills while he's waiting by the phone. Specifically, learning the Spanish translation for "snowball's chance in hell."

Sosa still waiting for offer [That one sports network]

"They said, 'You've got no chance,' they told me," Clemens said. "I said, 'I'm going to get it tomorrow, right?' And then she goes, 'No chance, we're going to the game.' So we couldn't get dry cleaning done out there, but I guess the neatest thing about them was there were about 50,000 of them at Anaheim Stadium, Korea and Japan.

We imagine Clemens having a similar discussion last season, after reaching on a single against the Dodgers, with first baseman Hee Seop Choi.

"So, hoss, I'm glad I've got you here. Listen, my guy is charging me $25 for a shirt and $40 for a suit. Doesn't that seem insane to ya'll? Forty bucks? Is that what you charge? You surely charge less than that, right?"

Clemens Gets NL Ring [ESPN]

According to the Wall Street Journal, the WBC will ultimately turn a profit of about "$10 million to $15 million," which is impressive, though player salaries tend not to spiral out of control when the players are from Cuba.

It is pleasing to note that an event that spread the word of baseball throughout the planet also brought in plenty of cold, hard cash. Expect this to end up like many baseball promotions; a fat cow that is ultimately milked until it is gaunt, Iggy Pop-esque. Who's up for a World Baseball Classic next year?! Who's with us?!

After a Few Foul Balls, World Tournament Ends Up Being a Hit [WSJ.com]

Two excellent on site reports from two Padres bloggers: Gas Lamp Ball and Ducksnorts. It's a night of overenthused Cuban fans, people smoking in the stands and an inexplicable Tommy Lasorda. It sounds like our kind of night.

World Baseball Classic Finals Photos [Gas Lamp Ball]
World Baseball Classic Photos: Japan Vs. Cuba [Ducksnorts]

Since leaving Major League Baseball to manage in Japan, Bobby V has become sort of our unofficial Japanese baseball ambassador ... to the detriment of everyone, including himself. Valentine's protestations that American baseball does everything wrong that Japanese baseball does right, that he appreciates managing "devoted team players," that the sun shines brighter over there, that everybody in Japan just toots rainbows. Valentine notoriously protests too much; no matter how much fun he's having in Japan, the famed self-promoter still nurses a seriously bruised ego after being run off from Major League Baseball. Therefore, everything they do in MLB is wrong, and everything they do in Japanese baseball is right (including — primarily — worshipping Bobby Valentine). Because hey, if they love Bobby, they must play baseball the right way!

Congratulations, Japan [Off Wing Opinion]

We don't understand this. It's clear that the team was trying and took the loss hard. It's difficult to call anything as random as a single series of baseball games a "debacle;" this is pretty far removed from the basketball and hockey embarrassments. (We also don't get why it's somehow more humiliating to lose the game you "invented," though we suspect 1800s cricket fans might have some say in that. It's not like England is expected to win the World Cup every year.)

The World Baseball Classic has been a fun experiment that will only improve as they work out the kinks. That Team USA isn't in the semifinals is probably for the best; of all the countries who had a chance, we're the ones who will surely handle the disappointment the easiest. Besides: If this just gave us the chance for one last run of Roger Clemens Retirement stories, jeez, isn't it worth it?

New World Order [Yahoo Sports]
Deflated Team [Baseball Musings]
World Baseball Conspiracy Theory [Sports Media Watch]

(Note: A reader who was in Anaheim last night writes in with an upsetting report: "Between innings on the Kiss Cam, the camera pans to the regular cliches; the elderly, a brother lip-locking his sister, etc. ... and then ... Tom Cruise dipping Katie Holmes and planting one on the lips. It was sort of like seeing Don Nelson at the Oscars, impossible but everyone saw it. I think.")

But that wasn't even close to the best game of the night. Cuba beat Puerto Rico 4-2 in a game with so much intensity — from players, from managers, from fans, from the hot dog guys — that we were seriously concerned the stadium was going to rip itself apart. And we'd like to say: Team Cuba is crazed. Where do we start with this team? They do things we've never, ever seen on a diamond. After a close — but correct — call at first base went against them, the first baseman started jumping up and down for a good 15 seconds; he was getting some serious hang time. One batter fouled a pitch straight back and then glared out at the pitcher and jawed, saying the Cuban equivalent of "I'm right on you!" (He grounded to the third baseman next pitch.) During one tense play late, two coaches started running out to the mound while the pitcher was in his windup. Perhaps distracted, perhaps not, Carlos Beltran swung and missed at the pitch.

But the best has to be Cuban manager Higinio Velez. He was thrown out of the game last night, which was incredible to watch, considering he was talking through his interpreter (a heavy-set, obviously beleaguered woman). Velez said something to the umpire that caused him to toss him, but we couldn't figure out; did the interpreter say it? Did the ump know what it was? How bizarre is it for a manager to come out to yell at the ump, bring his stout translator with him and then get run up? It was awesome. We'd never seen that before. We love the WBC.

Korea 2, Japan 1 [MLB.com]
Cuba 4, Puerto Rico 3 [MLB.com]