For all the hate that people direct at Barry Bonds, for all the malice that has poured into publications, how could you blame a Major League Baseball player for dropping out of the World Baseball Championships?

Fingers have been pointed at NBA superstars like Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett for not participating in the Olympics and putting the United States world basketball domination in jeopardy.

Well deserved.

NBA players have the time off and a gold medal is something that never depreciates. What else would you rather have on your mantle?

But the World Baseball Championships, why would you want to play in it? Granted every tournament had to start somewhere, but there is nothing at stake for the regular fan.

Hockey competition works because it’s a world-wide sport, soccer works because it’s a world-wide sport and basketball started to work because of the Dream Team.

There is no grouping of Major League Baseball players that could convince a fan to pay attention. For baseball you hang a Yankee pennant, not an American flag.

Barry Bonds pulled out of the contest citing that the next MLB season could be his last and he wouldn’t want to risk any injury. How could you blame him? Bonds is approaching some of the most historic records baseball has to offer, and if this is indeed his last year he would like to go out on top.

I have a feeling about this World Baseball Championship. It would probably mean a lot to the people of Cuba to win it all. The Dominican Republic would rejoice and its players would be full of pride. But the United States will not care and therefore it will not succeed.

To be brutally honest, the people of the Latin American countries are not going to economically fuel the tournament and when it’s obvious that Americans don’t care, the funding will be shot.

A Major Leaguer has a game almost every other day of the year. Don’t they play enough baseball?

Do you think they want to play more? Especially not the Americans, they don’t carry the same sense of underdog baseball pride. The urgency to win will not be there, it will show and in turn, the fans won’t care. It’s an honor to be named part of the roster, but beyond that, what type of mantel piece are you going to pick up?

The World Baseball Championship is scheduled to be played between March 3 and 20. I guess the officials were trying to dodge ratings.

Do you feel that the television-wielding sports fans are going to be tuning into Puerto Rico against the Dominican Republic, or college basketball? Usually, Tournament Week and March Madness fair pretty well audience-wise. Haha – what was the Baseball Championship committee thinking?

They probably weren’t, apparently the entire tournament has been poorly planned. Not until last week was Cuba allowed to participate, some of the greatest Major League players like David Ortiz claim they haven’t even been contacted by their country or foreign team.

Also, the committee did nothing to try and tempt MLB owners to climb on board. George Steinbrenner is completely against any of his players competing.

I agree.

If he is paying a pitcher $15 million a year, it’s for the entire year.

When a pitcher is worn down in October because he was pitching meaningful innings in March, who gets the blame?

This is going to fail, and even worse, what if a marquee player gets injured and can’t compete when it matters? For once, Bonds has a point … that isn’t the tip of a needle.

Ian Gold is a senior in Communications. He can be reached at [email protected].