Early this afternoon at 42nd Street and 9th Avenue. Too many of the new buildings going up in Times Square look alike.I was going to New York this morning, which is how I ended up watching bits and pieces of the first game of the World Baseball Classic. Held at the Tokyo Dome between Team Japan and Team China, it started at 4:30 a.m. here on the East Coast. I wanted to see the game because Yu Darvish was starting for Japan. He went four innings and looked OK but certainly not like, as he's been touted, the "best pitcher in the world." He didn't even look as good as that kid I saw early one wet spring several years ago when I was spinning my wheels in Tokyo and watching the spring high school tournament. That Yu wowed me.
On the other hand, it's sort of a spring training game and he was pitching against China. Not to knock Team China, which is definitely not the team I saw a couple of years ago in Arizona. Team China has made strides since then. Defense is better, speed is good. The pitching is more Jamie Moyer than Cole Hamels, but this morning both China and Japan looked like light-hitting teams. In the end Japan managed to turn its hits into runs and won the game 4-0. But China was a lot better than I thought it would be.
A frail Sadaharu Oh threw out the first pitch. He was in the dugout for the last WBC but is now suffering from stomach cancer. It was touching to see him again.
