World Baseball Classic ignored by local media

 

Roar Guru

By Ronnie from Hobart, 12 Mar 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru

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 baseball, World Baseball Classic

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There has been a lot of press coverage is recent days about Australia beating South Africa and thereby retaining its ranking as the number one Test cricket nation.

This is an honor coveted by ten nations only, two of which are sadly sliding by varying degrees toward either partial or complete systematic failure of the state: Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

At the same time as the Australian Test cricket team’s success, there has been another bat and ball competition in which Australia not only competed but also made heads turn.

It’s the World Baseball Classic.

The event is held every four years – the first being in 2006 – and is contested by 16 nations, two of which are, strangely enough, Australia and South Africa.

Both nations did in fact participate in the 2007 Baseball World Cup, with Australia making it to the quarters. The Classic is generally seen to have an edge over the World Cup thanks to it’s inclusion of professional players.

Coverage of the event by Australia’s media has been pretty shabby to say the least and, as with the 2007 Baseball World Cup, Australia’s participation alone should have been reason enough to generate a decent level of interest amongst the nation’s media and populace.

It’s a somewhat logical outcome to expect given the tendency of Australians to not only immerse themselves in many facets of American culture, but to also seek the recognition and adulation that comes with participating in global sports tournaments.

In this year’s classic, Australia belted Mexico and pushed Cuba – a power of world baseball – to it’s limit; a splendid effort given baseball’s peripheral existence in this country.

Still, Australia, specifically Melbourne, can at least boast of holding the record for the largest ever attendance at a baseball game.

Perhaps more than anything, the contrasting emphasis placed on the World Baseball Classic and the South Africa Vs Australia Test series yet again focuses attention on just one of many fault lines that dissect world sport. Fault lines that are largely due to historical and cultural developments that shape nations over time.

Baseball is a big deal in the US, as well across parts of its immediate sphere of influence (such as Latin America) and it’s zones of occupation (such as Japan and Korea).

And cricket is, of course, a big deal in a number of Britain’s former colonial possessions.

Each sport is seemingly a non-event in one anothers realm to the point where each suffers from what appears to be media blackout.