Archived Weblog Entry - 12/21/2008: "WORLD BASEBALL TODAY (December 21, 2008)"

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12/21/2008 Archived Entry: "WORLD BASEBALL TODAY (December 21, 2008)"

by Bruce Baskin
Radio Miami International
www.wrmi.net

MORNEAU TO PLAY FOR CANADA IN WORLD CLASSIC
Minnesota Twins star Justin Morneau has confirmed with Team Canada officials that he’ll represent his home country in March’s World Baseball Classic. It will be the second time the New Westminster, British Columbia has played for the Canadians in the WBC.
The left-handed-batting first baseman finished second in American League Most Valuable Player balloting this year after hitting .300 with 23 homers and 129 RBIs. Morneau led the AL with 163 games played and 16 intentional walks, finishing second in RBIs. He won the MVP trophy in 2006.
Morneau may be joined by a Twins teammate in the WBC. Toronto native Jesse Crain, a right-handed middle reliever, is a candidate for the final Team Canada roster. Crain was 5-4 with a 3.59 ERA and no saves in 66 appearances for the Twins.

BLYLEVEN NAMED PITCHING COACH FOR DUTCH WBC TEAM
Longtime major league pitcher Bert Blyleven has been named pitching coach for the Dutch National Team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Blyleven’s selection was announced by the Dutch Baseball and Softball Association earlier this month.
Blyleven spent 22 seasons in the big leagues, debuting with a 10-9 season for the Minnesota Twins in 1970 as a 19-year-old. A 6’3” right-hander who was born in the Dutch town of Zeist, he won 85 games for the Twins over the next five seasons, including a 20-17 mark in 1973. He never won 20 games again, but reached double figures in wins 17 times in a career that also saw him pitch for Pittsburgh, Cleveland and California, as well as a second stint with the Twins. He finished with a lifetime record of 287-150 with 3,701 strikeouts registered over 4,970 innings. Blyleven won two games apiece in the 1979 and 1987 World Series, and pitched for the American League in the 1973 and 1985 All-Star Games.
Blyleven replaces former Dodgers pitcher Bob Welch as The Netherlands’ WBC pitching coach, and will join fellow ex-big leaguers Mike Hargrove, Mike Piazza and Tom Treblehorn on new Dutch manager Rod Delmonico’s staff.

MLB CUTS TIES WITH HAWAIIAN WINTER LEAGUE
Major League Baseball and Hawaii Winter Baseball have severed their ties for a second time, this time after three MLB-affiliated seasons of winterball in the Aloha State. HWB fielded four teams in 2008, with the Waikiki BeachBoys winning the pennant by defeating the Oahu CaneFires, 5-1, in the title game last month. San Francisco’s first round draft pick, catcher Buster Posey, whacked a three-run homer for Waikiki that afternoon.
MLB is expected to create a similar four-team league in Arizona, where expenses would be much lower than in Hawaii. Like HWB, a new league in Arizona would feature players with less professional experience than those in the Arizona Fall League, which just concluded its 17th season. Both leagues would use the same training camp complexes.
Winterball has had two runs in Hawaii, the first spanning from 1993 through 1997 with young players from Japanese and Korean teams as well as MLB organizations, including future stars Ichiro Suzuki, Jason Giambi, Todd Helton and Mark Kotsay.

ALABAMA COLLEGIANS PLAY THREE GAMES IN CUBA
The University of Alabama’s baseball team got a two-run homer from Kent Matthes and some strong pitching to come away with a 3-3 tie against the Cuban Collegiate All-Stars last Tuesday in Habana in the opener of the three-game Friendship Tournament.
Crimson Tide starter Austin Hyatt settled down after allowing three unearned runs in the first inning, allowing no more runs through the fifth inning while striking out five Cuban batters. Hyatt retired 13 of 14 batters at one point.
The Cubans defeated the Crimson Tide, 6-2, in the second game on Wednesday. Shortstop Adonis Garcia collected three of Cuba’s 11 hits as home team starter Maikel Forch, who pitched for Cuba in the 2008 World University Games, held Bama to just one run on three hits in five innings on the mound.
In the third and final game of the series on Thursday, Cuba defeated Alabama, 7-5. The game was scoreless until Cuba’s Reiner Bello tripled off Tide starter Adam Morgan to drive in Jose Ruiz with the game’s first run. Alabama came back to take their first lead of the series by scoring five times in the top of the fifth, including an RBI single by Alex Kubal. The Cubans came back to score six seventh-inning runs and held on for the win.
After getting approval from the U.S. State Department this summer, the Tide became the first Alabama team to play in Cuba since 1957, two years before Fidel Castro took power.

LAZO WINS 24OTH GAME, VILLA CLARA REMAINS UNBEATEN
Longtime pitching legend Pedro Lazo has become the first hurler in Cuban National Series history to reach 240 career wins after Lazo pitched Pinar del Rio to a 2-1 win over Cienfuegos last Wednesday. The 35-year-old right-hander struck out eight and walked just one in a complete game win as Pinar stretched their record to 10-5, best in Cuba’s Occidental League and two games ahead of 6-5 La Habana.
Lazo broke Jorge Valdes’ Cuban record of 233 career wins last winter, but he needed Mijain Rivera’s tiebreaking solo homer in the seventh inning to beat Cienfeugos in Lazo’s second win of the season.
One night later, Villa Clara held off Guantanamo, 5-4, to pick up their 12th win of the season without a defeat. Yorkis La Rosa was 3-for-3 with three RBIs for Villa Clara as starter Yuliest Lopez won his third game. Guantanamo led 4-2 until the seventh inning, when Villa Clara posted three runs to take a 5-4 advantage they never relinquished.
Villa Clara is two games ahead of Ciego de Avila, who is 11-3 in the Oriental League standings. Unlike last winter, when the Cuban National Series was divided into four four-team divisions, this year’s edition features two eight-team leagues.

PUDGE HOMERS IN SECOND WINTERBALL GAME
Free agent catcher Ivan Rodriguez has played his first winterball game in his native Puerto Rico since 1996, ending an absence of eleven seasons. Rodriguez went 1-for-3 last Tuesday for Caguas against Santurce, then went 3-for-5 with a homer and a double one night later against Mayaguez. He scored six times over his first two games.
The 37-year-old Rodriguez hit .273 for Caguas in 29 games for the 1995-96 Puerto Rican League season. He hit .276 with seven homers this past summer for Detroit and the New York Yankees. Rodriguez has played in 14 All-Star Games, won 13 Gold Gloves and won the 1999 American League MVP award. He has a .301 average with 295 homers in his career.

KOREAN COMMISH RESIGNS POST EARLY
Korea Baseball Organization commissioner Shin Sang-soo stepped down last Tuesday, nearly three years after his appointment to the post in January 2006. The 71-year-old former politician was nearing the end of a three-year contract in March of next year, but had hinted at resigning before the end of his term shortly after the 2008 season ended.
Despite a strong Korean showing in the 2006 World Baseball Classic and a gold medal in this year’s Beijing Olympics, Shin did not have an easy tenure as KBO commissioner, dealing with problems regarding the Hyundai Unicorns/Woori Heroes franchise, an attempted selloff by the cost-conscious Heroes of star pitcher Jan Won-sam to Samsung, allegations by LG Twins manager Kim Jae-park of signal-swapping between opposing players during games, and a police probe into illegal online gambling involving 16 KBO players.
KBO team presidents have picked Korea Sports Council vice chairman You Young-koo as Shin’s replacement. The 62-year-old You served on the LG Twins advisory board in 1990 and in a similar capacity with the KBO in 2003.

JAPANESE TEAM SIGNS TWO CHINESE MAINLANDERS
Two players from the China Baseball Association’s Tianjin Lions have signed preliminary minor league contracts with Japan’s Yokohama BayStars for 2009. Twenty-year-old infielder Wang Jing-Chao and 25-year-old pitcher Chen Wei inked interim agreements to play in the BayStars system next year on November 30 at the Tianjin Sports Hotel prior to a December 12 press conference in Yokohama.
The Tianjin Lions are the reigning three-time champions of the CBA, but went winless in three games at last month’s Asia Series in Tokyo. A number of Lions players represented China in last summer’s Olympics in Beijing.

CEBU WINS SECOND PHILIPPINES LEAGUE PENNANT
Joseph Orillana pitched a shutout while driving in the game’s only run with a suicide squeeze bunt to lead the Cebu Dolphins to a 1-0 win over the Dumaguete Unibikers last Sunday, giving the Dolphins their second Baseball Philippines pennant in four seasons. Cebu defeated Dumaguete, 4-3, last Saturday in Game One of the best-of-3 championship series.
The 28-year-old Orillana, a former college MVP, allowed just four hits en route to winning top player honors for both the regular season and playoffs. Orillana was 4-1 with a 1.32 ERA while turning in a .461 batting average for the Dolphins. Baseball Philippines plays two schedules per year, with one spring season and one fall season annually. Cebu becomes the first BP team to win more than one pennant.

GERMAN STAR HUGHES TO PITCH IN DUTCH LEAGUE
German National Team pitcher Andre Hughes is going to try his luck in the Dutch National League next year after a highly successful 2008 season in the Bundesliga. The 23-year-old lefty was 11-1 with a 1.79 ERA in 13 starts for the Solingen Alligators last summer, striking out 77 hitters in 80.2 innings. Hughes allowed more than two runs just two times, and on the last day of the regular season, he tossed five no-hit innings against the Cologne Cardinals, striking out six. He was 1-2 in the playoffs with a 2.53 ERA. Internationally, Hughes has played for Germany in the European Championships, the Baseball World Cup and the Olympics Qualifier Tournament.
Hughes has signed a deal for 2009 with the Hoofdklasse’s HCAW Mr. Cocker club.

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