MLBeat

As of 4 p.m. Pacific time today, the World Baseball Classic is still happening. Nations will square off in March for what appears to be little more than vague bragging rights. Major leaguers will be suiting up for different teams, in different alignments, not to mention snazzy new uniforms. ESPN will presumably televise the heck out of it. A-Rod will be nowhere to be found. This is baseball perfection, people.

Here are the current rosters, or at least the contingent of MLB players on rosters thus far. Upon perusing them, questions abound:

• We're not gearing up for a 162-game season; the winning team will only play eight times. So why do some of the countries list thirty or more players? The Dominican Republic seems to be carrying 29 major leaguers thus far, and the U.S. lists over forty. Are they protecting themselves against an expected rash of dropouts? Are a handful of MLB all-stars prepared to be cut from the American and Dominican teams? Why did Al Leiter even bother to put his name on the Team USA list?
• If someone holds that Dominican lineup to two runs in eight innings, does it immediately jump into the inner circle of the pantheon of baseball's best-pitched games alongside Jack Morris, Kerry Wood and Doc Gooden?
• Supposing Team USA goes undefeated and wins the gold, they will play on March 7th, March 8th, and then they will alternate gamedays with days off until the final on the 20th, for a total of eight games. Now let's suppose the Americans settle on, say, Roger Clemens as their #1 starter. For their fifth game, on the 14th, will they run Clemens back out there on five days' rest? Do they go to their "fifth" starter, Mark Buehrle? Or the "seventh" starter, John Smoltz? Do they try to circumvent the concerns about preseason straining of pitchers by going Buehrle-Clemens-Halladay-Peavy-Pettitte-Smoltz-Sheets-Sabathia-Isringhausen in a nine-inning game? Would Barry Zito and Billy Wagner really be okay with "extra-inning insurance" duties in this scenario?
• Has it been explained properly why the Netherlands get a team? Is Andruw Jones going to play eight positions at once? And while we're at it, what about Great Britain or Greece? Don't we want to watch a gaggle of Frenchmen trying to learn baseball on an international stage? Can't we be allowed to witness an Angolan player somehow making contact but proceeding to run to the wrong base?
• Presumably the countries with only a handful of listed MLB participants (Panama, Korea) will fill out their rosters with local talent unknown to the peanut gallery of baseball fans worldwide. For simplicity's sake I will refer to them collectively as Paco Ruiz. What if Paco has a huge game in the preliminary round and catapults his underdog nation to the second round? Will Paco Ruiz jerseys start selling like hotcakes around the globe? Will the Yankees invite him to spring training to try out for the centerfield job? If Paco wins the job, and goes .330/.410/.500 in pinstripes, does it change the way we think about international scouting forever?
• If Ken Griffey declares his intent to suit up for Team USA in the woods, does it make a sound?
• If Team Italy makes a surprise run and wins the title behind the arms of Jason Grilli and Matt Mantei and the bats of Mike Piazza and Frank Catalonotto, do we disband the World Classic concept immediately out of shame, or do we insist on trying it again in four years?

All this, and we haven't even come to the Cuba problem yet. As Fidel Castro might say, you can't put a price tag on this.