Sure, the soccer one's a pretty big deal everywhere else, but World Cup baseball would be pretty damn fun to watch, especially for those of us without the all-too-common xenophobic leanings. Tim Kurkjian has had the first discussion on this, but he links in Yahoo and USA Today also manages to cover this, so I can't believe that Kurkjian could have just missed this. Did the Worldwide Leader edit something out that they didn't think their MLB partners wouldn't like seeing? It's not an unheard of policy. While the show "Playmakers" was laughably bad television, it's disappointing that ESPN would censor itself at the behest of the NFL.

Kurkjian does good work and in the few times I've met him has been very nice, so I expect more from him than a puff piece stroking baseball's fantasy. I also wonder if a Dominican or Japanese win would be their version of Miracle or if American isn't the one that would be surprised to be a winner.