[Lefty Noob]

Considering that the U.S. is on the brink of elimination, you had to know that it was only a matter of time before the backlash started. And in his column today, Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports got things started.

Among the many different points he made was this:

Chris Carpenter. Roy Oswalt. Mark Buehrle. Barry Zito.

They weren't on Team U's provisional roster.

Neither were Chone Figgins or Todd Helton or Grady Sizemore or Adam Dunn.

Not to mention Roy Halladay, C.C. Sabathia, Billy Wagner, Tim Hudson, Joe Mauer and, yes, Barry Bonds, who chose not to play for Team U.

...

A talent shortage on a team with 20 All-Stars? Compared to what could be – what should be – it's undeniable.

It just makes me wonder, "What If?"

What if we actually had the best of our best out there? What if our staff featured Halladay instead of Leiter, Carpenter instead of Willis. What if it was Barry Bonds and not Randy Winn pinch hitting yesterday? We might be undefeated.

[Gotham Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by Lefty Noob

Considering that the U.S. is on the brink of elimination, you had to know that it was only a matter of time before the backlash started. And in his column today, Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports got things started.

Among the many different points he made was this:



It just makes me wonder, "What If?"

What if we actually had the best of our best out there? What if our staff featured Halladay instead of Leiter, Carpenter instead of Willis. What if it was Barry Bonds and not Randy Winn pinch hitting yesterday? We might be undefeated.

...Ain't that the sad truth...Some how we no longer feel we need to send out best...and like in the 2004 Olympics where we got our butts handed to us in Basketball, the world is catching up...sad really...

[Lefty Noob]

The funny thing is, we knew the world was catching up to us in basketball. We had no idea that Canada, South Korea and Mexico would be as good as they are in baseball. Hopefully, if there is another WBC in 3 years, maybe some of our upper echelon players will actually decide to get involved. I know the MLB owners don't want to risk injury, but I'm sure they don't want to repeat this kind of embarrassing performance either.