Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Weeks after letting everybody know that they want to quit playing November baseball, Bud Selig and MLB are looking to arrange some November baseball. This latest bright idea, which we've heard bandied about a few times before, would create an international World Series, in which the winner of the World Series over here would go on to face the winner of the Japan Series over there.
There are a number of hurdles in the way, and as Jim Small - MLB's vice president for Asia - says, "it's a difficult thing to see happening." But MLB seems pretty committed to the idea and determined to make it work, so it's worth running down the various upsides and downsides to figure out just what this would mean. It's more baseball, right? What could be wrong with more baseball?
UPSIDES
(1) More baseball! No matter how many games there are in a season, true fans don't ever want to see the finish line, and an international World Series would bring us one step closer to having a game that takes place all year-round. Just think about it. Baseball! Almost every day!
(2) One of the annoying things about baseball - and all sports - is that, in the end, one team's fans are happy, and every other team's fans are disappointed. Introducing another World Series after the first World Series would yield the possibility - in the event of a loss to Japan - that every team's fans come away defeated, putting everyone back on equal ground.
(3) Were the games to be broadcast on TV, fans would get a rare glimpse of Japan's stars of today, who are invariably America's stars of tomorrow.
DOWNSIDES
(1) More baseball. Excluding Spring Training, a World Series champion plays a minimum of 173 games over the span of seven months. Enough already.
(2) Even though it doesn't feel like it most of the time, baseball's a dangerous game, and tacking another competitive series onto the end of a season during which players already wear down towards the end would lead to either (A) an increased risk of pitcher injuries, or (B) a decreased level of intensity. The first one isn't ever fun unless it's the Yankees, and the second one isn't ever fun, ever. Do you enjoy the All-Star Game? Would you like to watch four to seven of them in a row?
(3) The whole nationalism angle can be invigorating during international competition, but we all remember what happened the last time the US and Japan didn't like one another.*
* the Blue Jays will never win
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I'm not sure how this is going to work out in the end, since the two sides are only in the discussion process right now, but MLB has a funny way of being able to get what it wants, so that's something to keep in mind. You might want to start preparing yourselves now. From April to October, we'll root for who we root for. But come November, we'll all be on Team America.
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