Category Archives: Baseball

The first 23 players of Team Canada have been revealed

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Canada has released the first 23 players who are officially on their provisional roster, here’s a photo of the roster that they released on Twitter:

Now, a few notes on this roster:

Joey Votto is still expected to take part, he just needs to get some insurance paperwork done before it’s official:

Ryan Dempster, as mentioned above, is less clear. He hasn’t pitched in past WBCs for certain reasons but it had been hinted at that he might this time (although to the best of my knowledge he himself hadn’t). While he is not on the roster as of now, he could still possibly be put on it later, as Team Canada has only released 23 of the 28 player names. However, Dempster will be heading into his first season with the Red Sox, which makes it unlikely that he will for two reasons:

1) Players (but especially pitchers) joining new teams are often less likely to take part in the WBC.

2) The Red Sox, after the grand Daisuke Matsuzaka debacle of 2009 (when he, according to some sources, hid an injury so that he could continue pitching for Team Japan), are probably the most gunshy team this side of the Yankees when it comes to the WBC, so are probably going to do everything that they are allowed to do (a club cannot unilaterally bar a player from the WBC unless they have an injury) to keep him from playing.
Anyway, continue coming to The Baseball Continuum for more WBC news in the coming days.

Also, the probably-final roster for the Korean National Team at the WBC

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Dan from MyKBO sent this along to me, although I may have tweeted it earlier this week: what is expected to be the final roster for the Korean national team for the World Baseball Classic, complete with uniform numbers, uniform names (because of the commonality of names like Kim and Lee, initials are common in Korea) and the team they play for usually:

Barring injuries or last-minute dropouts, this will almost certainly be the team that Korea puts out in March. As expected, it is almost entirely made up of KBO players, with two exceptions: Dae-Ho Lee, who now is with the Orix Buffalo of the NPB, and pitcher Won-Jun Jang, who plays for the Police team of the Korean Futures League. The Police team is made up of players who are doing their required two years of national service (all able-bodied Korean males need to do military service), and it’s likely that Jang would likely be in the KBO if he wasn’t doing his service.

I’ll have a more in-depth look at this roster sometime in the future.

Yes, the Canadians are revealing (most of) their roster today

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At 3:30, to be exact:

 

Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 11:18 AM of Jan. 12, 2013

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NOTE: SINCE THIS WAS PUT UP THIS MORNING MORE NEWS HAS COME OUT. GO TO THE FRONT PAGE FOR THE LATEST.

 

Lots more news on the World Baseball Classic:

  • The bullpen of Team USA is starting to shape up. Middle-reliever Glen Perkins, one of the few bright spots for the Minnesota Twins last season, has confirmed he’s been called by Joe Torre and accepted an invite. So, into possibly/likely he goes. Joe Nathan of the Rangers, meanwhile, has said he’s considering an invite that Joe Torre has given him.
  • Adam Ottavino, an Italian-American who pitched for Italia in the past, will be passing this year.
  • Miguel Gonzalez, part of the Oriole pitching staff last season, has been invited to play for Mexico. He’s checking with the Orioles first, though. Therefore, I’m putting him in possibly/likely for now, mainly because I don’t have a “checking with the club” sub-list.
  • By the way, apparently a large amount of the Canadian team will be revealed later today, as I mentioned a few days ago.

The full list is below the jump:

Continue reading →

Review: The Living Baseball Card

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The baseball card. Is there anything so low-tech and yet interesting as it? And remember how, when you were young, you’d look over those statistics, look at the cool photos, and maybe see a line or two about the player off the field? You know, stuff like:

“Player X enjoys hunting and fishing during the off-season.”

Or…

“Player Y lettered in baseball, football and track in high school.”

Well, the Living Baseball Card project is sort of like that, only with a documentary instead of a line at the end. While it has the picture of the player and lines of stats, what sets the Living Baseball Card (which is larger than the average baseball card) apart is that it comes with a DVD that holds a documentary on the card’s player (the one I watched was about 23 minutes), in which the player talks about his childhood, upbringing, time in the minors, and MLB career.

Take the documentary I watched (I received two cards, but I’m holding one of them back as a possible giveaway in the future), which was on Royals outfielder Willie Wilson. The only person who speaks in the video is Wilson himself, as he discusses his childhood, his baseball days, as well as other topics related to his life. Having known very little about Wilson, it was interesting and seemed a good primer on him: about how he got into baseball, his experiences in the minors, etc. They ranged from the funny- he once left before the second game of a doubleheader in the minors, only to come back and have to grab his uniform out of the wash so that he could pinch-hit late in the game- to the sad- he stopped doing autographs for a time because a man had knocked down Wilson’s wife and young child trying to get it. A well-made and good paced DVD.

It will be interesting to see how the Living Baseball Card moves forward- I can definitely see it as being a possible giveaway at ballparks, for example, as the format could easily be changed around to showcase a current player, or an all-time legend that is getting his number retired.

Time will tell, but it definitely has potential.

Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 2:30 PM of Jan. 11, 2013

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Today’s World Baseball Classic news as of about 2:30 PM and a reminder that, as more WBC news continues to trickle in, keep an eye out later for any later updates:

As usual, the entirety of the list is after the jump:

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Six days or so until 28-man rosters come out for the World Baseball Classic

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Saw this from MLB.com’s Angels beat writer Alden Gonzalez:

 

So, yeah, there you go. The preliminary rosters for the WBC will be revealed on January 17.

Of course, I’ll continue doing the “Who’s in/out/in-between”, and in fact I should have another one up later today.

 

And now, another trailer for “42”

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While I’m not going to do the grand analysis of the first trailer, here’s the latest trailer for the Jackie Robinson biopic, 42, starring Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford. Keep an eye open for Christopher Meloni as Leo Durocher, Alan Tudyk as Phillies manager/racist dirtbag Ben Chapman, and Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black) making a bit of a reference to how MLB now honors Robinson every season.

I’ve updated today’s earlier WBC news.

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Just a heads-up for anybody reading this blog for WBC news, but two more items of World Baseball Classic news came about shortly after today’s post:

  • Jonathan Lucroy of the Brewers has tweeted that he’ll be playing.
  • Andrew McCutchen apparently has declined.

I’ve updated the previous blog post to include this, for those interested.

Who’s in/out/in-between of the World Baseball Classic as of 1:19 PM of Jan. 10, 2013 (updated AT 4:31 PM)

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Today’s World Baseball Classic news- depending on whether any more news comes out, there could be another update tonight:

As usual, the whole list is below the jump.

Continue reading →