Grab Bag Sports: Japan Begins 2nd Campaign for World Domination... in baseball & "It's A New Race" For the IndyCar Series

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Japan Begins 2nd Campaign for World Domination... in baseball & "It's A New Race" For the IndyCar Series

I'm not sure how many of you stateside were willing to stay up till 4:30 a.m. (ET) for the start of the 2009 world Baseball Classic, but if you did (or if you live in a nearer time zone) you got treated to a pretty good baseball game. I'm not going to do play-by-play coverage here; but overall it was a great showing by Japan which included a 4-inning shutout from starting pitcher (likely soon MLB pitcher) Yu Darvish.

While Japan looked good, and clearly are ready to defend their spot as World Baseball champion; it was also very encouraging to see China keep and contend at 4-0. The game was never really out of hand for a good comeback; that is especially encouraging for the WBC as a whole, considering that last time in the 2006 WBC, Japan beat China 18-2. Better competition will only continue to make the WBC the great event it can be.

I hope to be bring at least some analysis/coverage/twittering of the WBC throughout the tourney; Chinese Taipei vs. Korea tonight/tom. morning may be a little hard on my hours, but the following matchup of winners at 10:30 a.m. ET Friday should be totally doable. Team USA will kick off their tournament against Canada in the Skydome!

For IndyCar fans you can treat yourself another new promo from the new partner at VERSUS!

Personally I think this spot is exactly the right step that they need to go. the music is edgy, fast and a hint to the "punk" nature that fits so many of its drivers; instead of the WWE-ish "I am Indy" crapfest Gene Simmons came up with.

Most of all they're not implying that Indy racing started in 1996 like ESPN and "I am Indy" has done all this time. Just based on not using Gene Simmons' song alone, this gets 5 stars, as far as something that can get people pumped and excited about racing, it still gets 5 stars from me. They should make one slight edit (take out the Dave MacDonald crash), otherwise keep up the good work VERSUS!

If that video weren't enough montage for you; Chris Estrada over at Indy Racing Revolution has discovered the new IMS Productions Centennial montage "The Spirit of Indianapolis Motor Speedway". Along with Chris, I very much agree, IMS Productions, just hand that video to ABC and tell them to use it for the Indy 500 opening; it would be very hard to top this: