Hours after plans were revealed for the World Baseball Classic, a World Cup-style event that would feature 16 nations in tournament play, Gary Sheffield of the New York Yankees weighed in on the announcement.Sheffield reportedly told the New York Daily News that his “season is when I get paid,” “I’m not doing that. … I’m not sacrificing my body or taking a chance on an injury for something that’s made up.” Sheffield continued on to say that “This isn’t the Olympics,” “That’s a big difference. This is something you made up.”
While Sheffield made it clear that he will not participate in the 18-day scheduled to begin on March 3rd , the Classic did receive the praise of such baseball superstars as Miguel Tejada (Dominican Republic) who said that the people of his home country were “going to be really excited to see all the players on one team,”
Dontrelle Willis (United States) also came out in support of the tournament at press conferences Monday jokingly stating that “I just hope I make the team,”
However, Sheffield was not alone in his stance against the Classic. Former Mets Manager Bobby Valentine, who is currently managing in Japan, was all in favor of using the World Baseball Classic to help promote baseball internationally, but felt that the idea was “misguided” and that “there is no way I’d want one of my players to take part in a tournament like this before the start of the season.”
In reality, the World Baseball Classic does represent Major League Baseball’s attempt to create an event to fill in for the Olympics (which recently dropped baseball,) in hopes that the Classic will gain the prestige of soccer’s World Cup.