Tonight Japan and Korea will face off in a grudge match at Dodger Stadium – having already split four games over the last two weeks — in the finale of the second World Baseball Classic.

Or hadn’t you noticed?

You are, of course, forgiven if you hadn’t. Heck, Saturday night on Channel 4 here in L.A. – the city that’s hosting the final two rounds! – the WBC’s first semifinal game didn’t even rate a mention on the 11 p.m. news, shunted aside by extensive coverage of UCLA’s humiliating exit from the NCAA basketball tournament and quick glimpses at the Dodgers’ and Angels’ spring-training action. (Never mind that Angels fans might have wanted to know that the club’s newest high-priced acquisition, outfielder Bobby Abreu, dropped an easy first-inning fly ball that opened the door for Korea’s 10-2 rout of his Venezuela team.)

Personally, I can barely control my excitement about tonight’s final, which I’ll be watching from the same seat (hard against Dodger Stadium’s left-field foul pole) from which I saw the two semifinals. These WBC games offer an entirely different experience from your basic Major League Baseball matchup – and not just because the Koreans and Japanese play a slap-hitting, hustling, slick-fielding version of the game from which Americans have lost all contact during the Steroids Era. Even World Series games can’t offer the same type of baseball nirvana – all-star talent on the field, and intensely passionate, eminently joyful (and thrillingly multicultural) fans in the stands – that has been on display this weekend in Chavez Ravine.

Yet the WBC remains at (or off) the edge of our sporting radar screen, for numerous reasons. Scheduled during a month dominated by wall-to-wall college basketball coverage – a month when, for most of the country, baseball is still thought of as a month away unless you’re lucky/obsessive enough to travel to Florida or Arizona – the tournament has difficulty attracting media interest. And most of the attention it does receive deals with ancillary issues that reflect poorly on the players and the event, rather than focusing on the games themselves.

Granted, the WBC is still riding on training wheels in this second go-round, but so far the event is as frustrating as it is exciting. There’s plenty to love, and plenty to hate as well. To wit:

HATE: The timing. March is a problematic month in which to play games that mean something – not just because of weather (most of the nation is still inhospitable to outdoor activity, limiting the tournament to friendlier climates or … yeccchhhh! … domes), but because this is the time when ballplayers traditionally are shaking off the winter rust and recapturing their timing at the plate, not diving for an up-the-middle grounder with national pride at stake. MLB commissioner Bud Selig says the WBC is in March to stay, but it absolutely needs to move — either to a midsummer fortnight when MLB takes a break (as the NHL does for hockey’s World Cup and the Olympics), or, preferably, to November. Sure, in the latter case the tournament would still be limited to southern cities, but at least the players would be in shape, the eyes of the sporting world would still be on baseball … and, most important, the sport’s owners might not have such a cow over potential injuries (see below). (more…)