Terence Moore is yet another basher of the World Baseball Classic, and one of the reasons he cites is the same that got trotted out at the Winter Olympics for why people didn't care/watch -- there's no real "enemy" like in the past when it was the Soviet Union/Iron Curtain countries.

Well, actually, I think there still is an "enemy" when it comes to international competitions -- it's us, or if you wish, U.S. We're the Duke/Notre Dame/Lakers/Yankees of international competition since we're the only superpower left. Plus, politically, we're hated both outside the country and now, more than ever, inside the country. Of course, it's hard for us to be "patriotic" about our sports teams when we're not sure if we're patriotic in our own country based on what we believe.

I suppose when it comes to future world competitions, instead of thinking of looking at the competition as Russia, Italy, Germany or China, just pretend they represent other things (since more and more people can't identify where these countries are on the map). Use either Conan O'Brien's smack talk for other countries, or just pretend to call those countries "The German Republic of Bush," "The Russian Yankees," "China/Duke sucks," "The Liberals of Latvia," etc.

Going back to the WBC, I'm getting into it, even if the "Yankess" aren't. Granted, not all the games are going to be on TV live, or just on ESPN Deportes, but it's still an interesting concept that needs to be tweaked a lot. If anything, it's a PlayStation-like experiment come to life. And while there are plenty of critics of it, how do those anti-WTO protesters feel about it since Bud Selig says it's supposed to support the "globalization" of the game. Hmmm ...