"World" Baseball Classics

I am going to love the World Baseball Classic. It doesn’t really matter what happens, it’s going to be awesome.

Even if the Dominican Murders’ Row easily reduces all opposing pitching to a series of puddles or the American staff is as untouchable as LeBron at the trade deadline, just seeing The Grand Old Game seasoned with this type of international flavor is sure to be special.Think of the 2005 Home Run Derby when, while slugging in the World format for the Dominican, David Ortiz stopped to bark several Spanish orders at his daughter who was wandering near the on-deck circle.

Chuckles floated from the other nearby Latin Kings and Chris Berman pounced on an opportunity to offer a brilliant moment of insight by dutifully translating that Big Papi was merely protecting his little girl and not making jokes about how soon they got to leave Detroit.

And really, how much more cosmopolitan can you get?

Yes, as good as the Dominican, Venezuelan, Cuban and American teams are, what’s truly going to make this a memorable inaugural voyage is the overseas contingent.

Consider the story of Netherlands’ southpaw Andy Van Hekken, who hails from the exotic metropolis of Holland, Michigan. To be sure, growing up he was never allowed to play with fellow Dutch representative Mark Mulder, who hails from the ghettos of South Holland, Illinois.

Of course nothing either of them could have seen in their respective red-light districts compares with the freaks that teammate Kirk Saarloos encountered growing up among the head shops in Amsterdam, er… Long Beach, California.

Outfielder Gregory Halman is from the Netherlands, so don’t be surprised if you make a comment about his amateur status and the Apollo and he doesn’t get it. He’s from Harlaam, and while they probably shuffle there, I doubt it looks quite the same.

Then there’s the Italian team, whose hometowns read just like the itinerary on a magical tour of the one of the world’s most romantic nations. All the way from the lamp-lit cobblestones of Vito Chiaravalloti’s native Red Bank, New Jersey to the world-renowned canals of Staten Island, where Frank Menechino undoubtedly steered a gondola for pocket money as a teen.

And should you corner Marc Lamacchia at some point during the festivities, be sure to ask him about the centuries-old museums that routinely draw thousands of tourists to blocks from his boyhood home in Dunedin, Florida.

This is more than a baseball tournament. Each contest has the potential to instill a new-found faith in the value of international diplomacy in clubs, and in the same way “football” players exchange jerseys after a World Cup match, these teams will, if they pay attention, take much about the rest of the world home with them.

Nowhere is that more true than with the South African and Australian teams. Given the recent rash of racially motivated violence Down Under, perhaps the South Africans might offer some advice from their historic struggles with that issue.

Just don’t expect it to come from infielder Paul Rutgers, who like a handful of others on South Africa’s preliminary roster also comes from the land of the Crocodile Hunter, Crocodile Dundee, and probably, at least a few actual crocodiles.

But I digress.

Of course others, like South Korea, Japan, Panama, Mexico and Puerto Rico have no trouble fielding teams consisting primarily of genuine natives, but with all due respect to those wonderful countries, that’s unbelievably boring.

After all, that kind of continuity goes against the very spirit of this entire operation. When I want to see real Canadians on the Canadian team I’ll watch Olympic hockey.

But when I want to be witness to international sports pageantry at its finest, that’s when I turn to baseball, a game that’s truly for the world.

And if nothing else, the fact that Aussie hurler Tristan Crawford is from Anchorage, Alaska is definitely classic.