World Cup (possible?) & some thoughts in general

[Crowbar]

I have been thinking about my next semi-fictional set-up, something different but exciting.

Inspired by my own country's succesful turn in baseball the last few years, winning the 2011 Baseball World Cup among things, although I get the impression not one single American/Canadian cares for that cup at all. I remember the day we won, was looking at all American news sites, none mentioned it in the quick search I made.

Since that time, I have the distinct impression that they only care about the MLB. I always wondered why the final was called "world series", don't get me wrong, I absolutely love MLB history, but I always thought about it. It's like the world only exists out of the US baseball league, there's nothing outside. It's like calling the FA Cup in England the "world cup".

And my feelings were only boosted when I found out how it almost seems like people acted lightly about the World Cup.

Just some thoughts.

Anyway, has anyone had succes in making a set-up somewhat close to World Cup? At least some way to feed people at the end of each season into a yearly playoff tournament?

[Jeff Reed]

It was called the world series long before there was good baseball being played elsewhere. So, it is anachronistic to say it the name is indicative of some kind of arrogance or provincialism. It's just a traditional name at this point based on a challenge issued by a manager in 1903.

And still, I'd bet on any mlb team against the best club team of any other country in a true world series.

[r0nster]

I second what reed said

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by Crowbar

Since that time, I have the distinct impression that they only care about the MLB. I always wondered why the final was called "world series", don't get me wrong, I absolutely love MLB history, but I always thought about it. It's like the world only exists out of the US baseball league, there's nothing outside. It's like calling the FA Cup in England the "world cup".

Trust me, I live in the US, and it bugs the crap out of me. And almost every sport does something similar - the team that wins is always the "world champions." It's stupid. Hockey is, I think, the only sport in America that doesn't do this, calling the winners "Stanley Cup Champions," which is infinitely more appropriate.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Crowbar

I have been thinking about my next semi-fictional set-up, something different but exciting.

Inspired by my own country's succesful turn in baseball the last few years, winning the 2011 Baseball World Cup among things, although I get the impression not one single American/Canadian cares for that cup at all. I remember the day we won, was looking at all American news sites, none mentioned it in the quick search I made.

I like the baseball World Cup. And unlike many Americans, I love international baseball. I follow the *** and Serie Nacional, the Dutch Hoofdklasse, the Italian Baseball League and other leagues around the world.

I agree, it's really annoying that the American media pretends that such competitions don't exist. Hope that changes some day.

But the American media doesn't represent the tastes of all Americans, not by a long shot. For example there are also many of us who love football (real football, not American football), rugby and even cricket. But you'd never know that from the American media's lack of coverage of those sports Though they have lately gotten around to acknowledging that soccer exists. So maybe there's so hope for them yet

[Padreman]

Well the World Baseball Classic has proven that the best baseball players don't come from the USA many foreign players are just as good or better than MLB talent that are of USA orgin. So the USA does NOT have a monopoly on the sport. My dad was always irritated that baseball's championship was referred as the "word series" when teams from
Different country's don't play just USA and 1 Canadian team and he mentioned not all the best players play here other leagues around the world has talent just as good or better in some cases. It's true

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Padreman

Well the World Baseball Classic has proven that the best baseball players don't come from the USA many foreign players are just as good or better than MLB talent that are of USA orgin. So the USA does NOT have a monopoly on the sport. My dad was always irritated that baseball's championship was referred as the "word series" when teams from
Different country's don't play just USA and 1 Canadian team and he mentioned not all the best players play here other leagues around the world has talent just as good or better in some cases. It's true

I think the problem that the US team has in the WBC is more that their best players don't play for whatever reason and it ends up being mostly college and minor league players with one or two MLB players.

[Jeff Reed]

Without a doubt the USA does not have a monopoly on talent. However, the best foreign players will typically come to MLB to play.

And please, for those chafing at the final playoff series being called the World Series, read the Wikipedia article on it at least. I briefly summarized the origin of the name above. I would agree that the name is inappropriate if it were so named today, but when you know the history you can free yourself from applying anachronistic linguistic analysis to the title.

[Crowbar]

Originally Posted by Jeff Reed

It was called the world series long before there was good baseball being played elsewhere. So, it is anachronistic to say it the name is indicative of some kind of arrogance or provincialism. It's just a traditional name at this point based on a challenge issued by a manager in 1903.

And still, I'd bet on any mlb team against the best club team of any other country in a true world series.

I see, that might still be very much the case, but the quality is coming closer together in the last few years.
I found this on the name "world series": It's not entirely clear though. Fall 2001: Origin of the Name "World Series"

But I still believe if the US would have made more attempts to make baseball more worldwide friendly, it would be more fun in general for the game. I watched several MLB Baseball matches live on the internet via TV for some time, but I am not doing it any longer. I refuse, the commercials irritate the crap out of me. Every single half inning these annoying long commercials.

You have to admit, it's one thing football (soccer, don't ever call it soccer ; )) does better, 45 min halfs, no way to let commercials get in between that. It's less annoying to watch, not talking about the difference in games.

My observation is that US only runs on sports easily affected by commercials to gain money, NHL has this, NFL, NBA and MLB. Although football does get more populair in the US, it's not quite up there. I just wish MLB baseball could do with less commercials, I would be bothered watching it again.

My 2 cents.

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

Trust me, I live in the US, and it bugs the crap out of me. And almost every sport does something similar - the team that wins is always the "world champions." It's stupid. Hockey is, I think, the only sport in America that doesn't do this, calling the winners "Stanley Cup Champions," which is infinitely more appropriate.

I agree, it fits better. Besides baseball and football, ice hockey is another sport I like to follow.

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

I think the problem that the US team has in the WBC is more that their best players don't play for whatever reason and it ends up being mostly college and minor league players with one or two MLB players.

Exactly, this bothered the crap out of me. It seems likely that the best American players don't care or don't want to play (they already have all the money in the world it seems).

In my opinion one should be proud to play for their country. For example my favorite current MLB player is Ichiro Suzuki. I like his playstyle, I admire his personality because he doesn't act like a superstar, he plays with dignity and is proud to play. It's a shame he plays for the Yankees, though. But that's an entirely different subject

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by Crowbar

Exactly, this bothered the crap out of me. It seems likely that the best American players don't care or don't want to play (they already have all the money in the world it seems).

There's also this stigma with the WBC where teams are terrified that their star players will get hurt or tired and be unable to effectively contribute during the MLB season, where it "matters."

[damientheomen3]

How I've done World Cups before and how I advise people to do it:

-Go into your Saved Games folder and create a duplicate of the save file folder that you want to run the world cup in. You can do this by just copying the folder and then pasting it.

-Open the copy of the league in OOTP.

-Either delete all of the teams in the league that currently exists, or simply alter them to be National teams. You can do this by setting their location name to the country, or a representative city for the country (doesn't really matter), but then make sure you set the nation of the team to be whatever nation the team is supposed to represent.

-Go into the rules tab and set the league to 'No Foreigners Allowed'. When it asks how to base foreigners, set it to be by team nationality. Now each team can only have players from their own country.

-I'd recommend turning off financials, just to streamline things.

-Use the function to release all players and schedule the inaugural draft. As long as each team can fill a roster, it should work fine.

I haven't tested this on OOTP 14, mind you. There are a few drawbacks; for one, you'll have to schedule all of the games yourself and any history of the league is your job to track (historical standings, stats, etc.), and unless you set the percentage of foreign players to be high, you'll see the home nation of the league winning a lot, but it's ultimately pretty fun.

[struggles_mightily]

Originally Posted by Jeff Reed

And please, for those chafing at the final playoff series being called the World Series, read the Wikipedia article on it at least. I briefly summarized the origin of the name above.

You don't think there's anything ideologically significant about a baseball tournament for white American teams being called a "World's Championship"? Huh.

[Jeff Reed]

Originally Posted by struggles_mightily

You don't think there's anything ideologically significant about a baseball tournament for white American teams being called a "World's Championship"? Huh.

What team is composed of "white Americans"? The question makes no sense as the premise is flawed.

There was no ideological, white, or American significance behind calling it the world series in 1903. If you would but read the history of the series and place it in context, you'd see.

[D-BacksJosh]

Originally Posted by struggles_mightily

You don't think there's anything ideologically significant about a baseball tournament for white American teams being called a "World's Championship"? Huh.

Now I get the username 'struggles mightily'.

[D-BacksJosh]

The term 'World Series' doesn't bother me at all. Never even thought twice about it, and still don't after reading this thread. Honestly, they should hold the WBC after the MLB season and not before. Holding the WBC while teams are trying to prepare for the season and during spring training is just ridiculous. Yes, MLB is the pinnacle of the sport. After all the sport was created on this continent. Players consider the MLB the best of the best and, well, it is. The WBC not so much. So if they want to tag the championship series 'The Ultimate Matchup in the Galaxy' it wouldn't bother me.

[Gator]

Originally Posted by Crowbar

I have been thinking about my next semi-fictional set-up, something different but exciting.

Inspired by my own country's succesful turn in baseball the last few years, winning the 2011 Baseball World Cup among things, although I get the impression not one single American/Canadian cares for that cup at all. I remember the day we won, was looking at all American news sites, none mentioned it in the quick search I made.

Since that time, I have the distinct impression that they only care about the MLB. I always wondered why the final was called "world series", don't get me wrong, I absolutely love MLB history, but I always thought about it. It's like the world only exists out of the US baseball league, there's nothing outside. It's like calling the FA Cup in England the "world cup".

And my feelings were only boosted when I found out how it almost seems like people acted lightly about the World Cup.

Just some thoughts.

Anyway, has anyone had succes in making a set-up somewhat close to World Cup? At least some way to feed people at the end of each season into a yearly playoff tournament?

Just to confirm your impression, I am confident that very few Americans are aware that a baseball world cup exists, much less care about who wins it. In America only MLB matters, with perhaps the college and little league world series a distant second and third. Baseball is an American creation and as a result there has never been any need or desire by Americans to look beyond our borders for a measuring stick of our worth in the sport. I think we rejoice in the knowledge that our game has been embraced and is growing in some nations around the globe. MLB is trying to nurture this with the admittedly clumsy WBC. However, that said, my own opinion is that the game ultimately does not lend itself well to international play as any tournament format can offer little more than an exhibition as a true world champion would require playing a large sample size of games to determine which team was truly best.

[Crowbar]

Originally Posted by damientheomen3

How I've done World Cups before and how I advise people to do it:
...

Thanks, I'll try this out myself.

Originally Posted by D-BacksJosh

The term 'World Series' doesn't bother me at all. Never even thought twice about it, and still don't after reading this thread. Honestly, they should hold the WBC after the MLB season and not before. Holding the WBC while teams are trying to prepare for the season and during spring training is just ridiculous. Yes, MLB is the pinnacle of the sport. After all the sport was created on this continent. Players consider the MLB the best of the best and, well, it is. The WBC not so much. So if they want to tag the championship series 'The Ultimate Matchup in the Galaxy' it wouldn't bother me.

Well, maybe this is just something different because we grew up differently. I grew up with football in my country, and for me it was strange seeing the name the world series the first time. I guess for a lot of Americans (not all as the replies on this thread show) it is just natural.