Comic for Thursday March 23rd, 2006

"SEKAI CHAMPION JAPAN!!" Wednesday - March 22nd, 2006

In case you hadn't heard, Team Japan won the inaugural World Baseball Classic making them the true World Champions of baseball. Japan beat Cuba in the final this past Monday and I watched every moment of it. Well... every moment that I could since ESPN felt that it would show the overtime of a frickin 2nd Round NIT game over the final of the World Baseball Classic. WTF?! I'm still livid about it. I can understand if they kept the game on in the areas or states where the teams competed, but switch over for the rest of us. I not only missed the all the pregame hoopla, but Japan scoring 4 runs in the first fricking inning!! It was still an amazing game and for one of the very few times in my life a team that I truly cared about won the championship. I do not say this lightly in saying this was THE happiest moment I've ever had in sports. The only way it'll ever be topped is if the Giants win the World Series or the Kings win the Stanley Cup. These quotes by Japanese MLB star Ichiro sum everything up.

"Apart from the Olympics, I really wanted this WBC tournament to be the event that decides the true world champions, so that's why I participated in this event," he said. "And at the end, I was able to be on the championship team, and this is probably the biggest moment of my baseball career."

"Today, we had a different reason to fire ourselves up," Ichiro said after Japan's win. "We really wanted to win this championship today, and I didn't even think about the upcoming regular season of 2006. It's not an ideal thing for a player to think, but I didn't really care if I would get injured in this game. That's how much I really wanted to win this one. That's how we were driven to this championship."

I'll be savoring this moment and plan on buying some championship memorabilia, something I've never ever had the pleasure of buying. Sure UConn and DC United have won championships, but in the grand scheme of things NCAA and MLS rank lowest on my list right under the NBA. Somehow it's all made even more sweet when I ear about the news in Japan and how everyone there is going out of their minds about this. I'll leave you with this picture of the players taken on the field of dreams.

I'd talk about the comic, but really I can't say anything when compared to the news above. Sorry to anyone and everyone who could care less about baseball, but this is about as happy as a guy can get. I implore you to let me indulge this feeling for a few moments longer. I'll see you on Monday when everything returns to normal.

River enjoyed Japan winning the WBC too much.