The World Baseball Classic is back. Round 1 tickets are now on sale for games in Toronto, Tokyo, San Juan and Mexico City.

Teams playing in Toronto at the Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome): Canada, USA, Venezuela, Italy. Prices range from $60 (upper deck) to $294/204 (field level). Yikes!

Out of my price range right now. And as currently scheduled, because of this "Classic" the World Series will go well into November. Ugh.

ARod says he will play for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic 2009 (he played for Team USA in 2006).

Which team is Madonna playing for?

Rosters announced. Plenty of big names participating.

Team USA includes... Derek Jeter, David Wright, Dustin Pedroia, Chipper Jones, Evan Longoria, Roy Oswalt and Scott Kazmir

Team Canada includes... Justin Morneau, Russ Martin, Jason Bay, Rich Harden and Jeff Francis

Team Japan includes... Ichiro, Akinori Iwamura, Kosuke Fukudome, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima

Team Puerto Rico includes... Carols Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Mike Lowell, Ivan Rodriguez and Javier Vasquez

Team Dominican Republic includes... Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, Miguel Tejada and Ervin Santana

Team Venezuela includes... Magglio Ordonez, Melvin Mora, Carlos Guillen, Dionner Navarro, Johan Santana and Francisco Rodriguez

Also competing: Cuba, China, Taiwan, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Panama, South Africa

and yet, for some reason, I am NOT excited for this. I wasn't last time either. I have no idea why.

Hey Mark:
I remember reading this post a couple of months ago and agreed with others - that this was out of my price range. Earlier today I surfed the site and saw that individual game tickets for the second round in San Diego ranged in price from $15 - $70 a ticket and I was about to go on an anti-Rogers rant, thinking that the Rogers Centre were doing the same with these tickets as they did with the Buffalo Bills games up here - highway robbery prices.

As an aside rumour has it the Toronto group running the Bills games up here over the next four years are trying to renegotiate with Bills' owner Ralph Wilson to get some of the $78 million they paid for the 5 regular season and 3 pre-season games up here back since now they realize they can't sell tickets at $300+ a pop. Good luck with that.

So back on topic - I was about to rant when I went online and it turns out the actual single game ticket prices are in the $12 - $59 range - even less than regular season Jays tickets.

So tomorrow when I'm hosting a Super Bowl party for a bunch of friends - who are the group of guys I share tickets with to go to all the Leafs, Raptors, Argos, TFC and Jays games that I go - I'm going to suggest we take in at least one of these games. Knowing now the reasonable price for the games, I'll suggest we buy tickets for the March 7th Canada vs USA game. That would be the one that should have the Rogers Centre rocking.

Mark already knows this because I e-mailed him, but thanks to a cheap Hotwire room and cashing in US Airways dividend miles for a free flight, I'm going to be up there for some WBC games, along with fellow OS poster Falconpride and a lady friend of his. Our tentative plan is to go to the USA-Canada game and a couple of others, plus a Raptors game and, if inexpensive tickets can magically fall into our laps , a Leafs game.

Not that there is such a thing as a cheap Leafs ticket because even at face value they are amongst the most expensive in the league - but the good news is that even with last night's game honouring one of the all-time Leaf fan favourites Doug Gilmour - raising his # 93 to the rafters - and playing Sidney Crosby and the Pens - they were reporting that scalpers were only getting face value for tickets. And I can't see there being a huge demand for tickets to see the Oilers who play in Toronto on that Saturday night.

Also the Leafs do allow season ticket holders to return tickets to the box office if they are not going to use them - so often on the day before or day of the game tickets magically appear at the box office or on ticketmaster.ca. This from the Leafs website...
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A number of tickets are held until each gameday and released through the day. So if you're looking for tickets to a particular game and ticketmaster tells you that none are available, try back and see if any have been released. The same goes for the ticket office at Air Canada Centre. Before each home game a limited number of tickets may be released. If you're there, they can be yours and for the same price that appears on the ticket!
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So you may want to swing by the Air Canada Centre box office to see what might be available either the evening before if going to the Friday night Raptors game, or on Saturday morning before heading over to the Rogers Centre for the baseball game. And I know this from first hand experience there are often can be single seats available - not two seats in a row. Not ideal but often friends have bought those the day of a Raptors or Leafs game and been able to move into two empty seats together by late in the first quarter or period if that works for you.

And if I am successful in convincing some buds to go the the World Classic game with me - it would be great to meet up for a beer or something before or after the game to celebrate Canada's win.

Cheers,
Pat

Indeed, it seems that the $60 price for upper deck seats was actually for the 6-game series. The single ticket price is only $12/game (plus service charges, which probably double the price ).

There's a Blue Jays shop in the Sears store downtown, and I'll swing by there this week to see if they're selling WBC tickets. I would think that they would be selling them, although I could go to the SkyDome itself. I'll send an e-mail to Ed13 to see if he may want to come down that weekend. Perhaps we'll have a mini-Outsports gathering at the U.S.-Canada game.

Just to update this: we've got tickets for the USA-Canada game on Sat. 3/7 plus the games being played on Sun. and Mon. 3/8-9. In talking with Falconpride, I think we're probably not going to go to a Raptors game because his friend isn't really into sports and he doesn't want her to feel like she'll be going to a bunch of sporting events besides the baseball, and also because he wants to make sure he gets around and tours the city. I think a Leafs game still might be an option, if tickets were available and if they weren't overly expensive (unlikely as both of those "ifs" may be). We'll be spending some time with canmark depending on his schedule and if he can pull himself away from Twitter so Travelpat or anyone else who wants to get together, just post here or otherwise get in touch with one of us.

Mike Piazza to be hitting coach for Team Italy in WBC. Italy will be playing their first round games in Toronto. The Italian teams includes a number of MLB players, including ex-Blue Jay Frank Catalanotto, Nick Punto, and Jason Grilli.

No A-Rod in the WBC. He has a torn labrum in his hip. Hip injuries seem to be the hot new injury recently. Chase Utley, Mike Lowell...and a number of athletes in other sports have had similar problems.

Hey Joe;
Have fun at the games up here in Toronto. Turns out I'm not going to be able to make the game on Saturday myself. Basically the way my weekend was coming together it came down to a choice - private box (with free food and booze) at tomorrow night's Raptors - Heat game or Baseball - fairly lousy seats Saturday. Needless to say the free food and booze (not so much the basketball game) won.

If you guys have any plans to hook-up with Canmark while up here - let me know and hopefully we can meet up with all of you at some point. Have fun! Go Canada Go!

Hey, there's an opportunity to see three sporting events in three seperate venues in the span of a single day. (if ya have a car)

1230 raps/jazz
4 marlies/hamilton
8 WBC game.

It'll be a stretch getting to that hockey game on time from toronto especially if there's traffic....f'it. I'm giving this a shot!

We're definitely meeting up with him. You're welcome to join us whenever your schedule permits.



I take it the Marlies game is at Hamilton? They have a home game Sat. but it's at the same time as the Canada-USA baseball.

yes it is, Copps Coliseum....

The Canadian dollar is very low right now, so you Americans are rich. Come and spend money and bolster our economy! I suspect there will be plenty of empty seats at the Rogers Centre (unlike the Tokyo Dome, which was supposedly sold out for the Japan-China game today).

Maybe we can sneak down from the upper deck?

I wish I had a decent amount of money to spend, frankly. If it weren't for my airline miles to get the flight and spliiting the cost of the hotel room I got through Hotwire, this trip wouldn't be possible. Are there any rich people up there who'd consider a bailout?

Well - baseball weather is greeting the baseball players - for today anyways in Toronto. A balmy 61F out there this afternoon, with people even having their lunch on the outdoor patios here along Church Street. No such luck for the rest of the weekend though with rain in the mid 40's Saturday, with the same temperatures - although sunny for Sunday. So yes the roof will be closed at Rogers Centre.

FYI - Almost 40,000 tickets have been sold for tomorrows game - with less than 20,000 sold for any other game of the series being played here.

Today's game between DR and the Netherlands was a shocker. Netherlands won 3-2, both because of Hanley Ramírez's error early on and because the Dominicans couldn't drive in more runs. I thought Pedro Martínez looked great on the mound.

The best part of the game had to be the hotness of the two lineups. Wilth all those gorgeous Caribbean men from both teams on the field, it was almost like a tropical beauty pageant!

Despite a day and night-long drizzle, there was a good atmosphere under the dome as Team Canada dropped their opener 6-5 to Team USA in front of a 42,000+ crowd. Canada played surprisingly well (as evidenced by the score), and had a 2-1 lead early on. Down 6-3, the Canadians did manage to scratch out 2 more runs and in the 9th inning had the tying run in scoring position and go-ahead run at the plate (Jason Bay). Hunky Joey Votto was the star for Team Canada, going 4/5 with 2 RBI. I knew nothing about him before, but he had impressive numbers (.297, 24HR, 84 RBI) last season for the Reds.

After the game, JiP, falconpride and friend and I went out for dinner and later on met up with blueraider and friend at a bar where JiP dazzled all with his immense knowledge of trivia (NTN trivia game). JiP is like Rain Man--he knows everything about everything. Who knew?

Today blueraider is planning to see 3 sports in 3 venues in 2 different cities over an afternoon/evening.

Will be seeing US-Venezuela tonight and Canada-Italy tomorrow night.

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At the US-Canada game, Team USA was the "home" team and Tommy Lasorda threw out the first pitch. Since the game was in Canada, could they not find either a Canadian or an American with a Canadian connection (former Expo or Blue Jay, say)?

At the Italy-Venezuela game, Toronto Raptor Andrea Bargnani (who is Italian) threw out the first pitch.

Hey Mark:
I wish I could have joined you all for some of the fun - but I don't know if it was something I ate in the private box at the ACC attending Friday night's Raptors game or watching Wade's incredible display almost single handedly beating the Raps that made me feel sick.

Anyways I've felt like crap all weekend so no chance to meet up with you guys. I did watch the baseball game and it was BY FAR the loudest crowd in years for a baseball game at the Rogers Centre. I was half tempted after watching the first 2 or 3 innings to jump on my bike and buy an upper deck ticket just to be part of the fun. I'm going to try to talk some friends into going to Monday nights game - Canada versus Italy. If Canada win that - the silly 5:00PM starting time of Tuesday's game makes it unlikely I'll be able to go to that one - having to work until 6.

It will be tough to match the sheer drama and excitement that Saturday afternoon's game created - largely because of the over the top crowd. Some quotes from the Team USA players.

"This is a playoff atmosphere," U.S. pitcher Jake Peavy said. "Everything is on the line, you're doing everything you can to win and advance in this tournament, and playing for your country just takes that through the roof. It's as good an atmosphere as it gets, I believe."

"It was unbelievable," (Mets reliever) Putz said. "That was definitely the loudest crowd I've ever been a part of. I haven't pitched in the playoffs, so this is what I think playoff baseball would seem like. It was awesome out there."

I wish I had been there.

re the ESPN coverage: Can we please have Rick Sutcliffe's mouth sewn shut? King of the morons.

Looks like Team USA is on a mission tonight, currently 10-3 during the offensive explosion in the 6th inning.

Jazz 109, Raptors 101

Marlies 4, Bulldogs 3

USA 15, Venezuela 6

Mission accomplished:)

Despite playing competitively vs. Team USA, Team Canada is defeated 6-2 to Italy and now leaves the WBC having played the minimum 2 games-- despite playing on our home turf. You'd think they were a Toronto-based team the way they disappointed their fans-- a mere 12,000+ showed up for the dispiriting game. Boo!

I think you nailed it Mark. The problem - they became Toronto's team and that is the kiss of death these days. Boy somebody here must have done something to piss off the sports gods.

- Jays have done nothing since 1993
- Raptors have been very disappointing for most of their existence and certainly the last two seasons
- the Leafs have not won Lord Stanley's Cup since 1967 and now are about to miss the play-offs for the 4th year in a row
- the Rock - our lacrosse team stinks this year
- TFC soccer have for the most part been brutal
- the Argos in the CFL really stunk this year (as did my team Hamilton just down the road)

All the teams have made so many coaching changes - the longest serving coach of any team in Toronto is the TFC coach who was hired 13 months ago.

I guess if a Canadian team wants to win something - play somewhere other than Toronto.

Or at least get better starting pitching.

Well it's a good thing Outgames were held in Montreal. ;-)

LOL - Although if in Toronto - it would have been the Gay Games here and Chicago never would have had them - because unlike the folks in Montreal - I suspect Toronto would have come to an agreement with the FGG.

Damn..the Netherlands beat the Dominican Republic AGAIN!!!! My boyfriend was pissed the first time. He's still walkin around the house cussin like a sailor!!!

I am in disbelief. I was watching the highlights on Sportscenter. I think that it is like 23 or 24 dominicanos in the MLB and like 2 players from the Netherlands. It is amazing that they lost. Wow...but there were some hot players from the Netherlands.

The Netherlands v Dominican Republic game was an incredibly entertaining game. I watched every pitch, something I would never do during the MLB regular season if I weren't watching my team.

I didn't really care about anything WBC-related until the Netherlands beat the DR, especially after hearing the comments made by Alou and some of the players. Not sure of the exact quote but Alou, instead of being humbled by the first loss, said something like "We should have beaten them 9-0". So I was REALLY glad to see that they beat them again.

Guys, anything can happen in a short series, 'member? Unfortunately the Jays may be in a division with the 3 best teams in MLB this year (emphasize "may").

Really enjoyed the Cuba comeback vs Australia last night, especially since I'd seen some of the players (eg, Lazo) on my visit in 2004.

Sorry Canada!

Re: Netherlands defeating DR: And Dominican Rep. manager Felipe Alou appears to blame Albert Pujols, who didn't play. Yep, a team with David Ortíz, Miguel Tejada, Hanley Ramírez, Robinson Canó, Jose Guillén, Miguel Oliva, and pitchers like Pedro Martínez, Edinson Vólquez, and Johnny Cueto can't beat the Dutch?

Felipe, look at your team's on-field errors and the punchlessness of your team's bats.



Sounds like you're going to be consoling ya boy(friend), Mdterp, giving him some extra love.

Venezuela defeats USA 5-3 and will play Netherlands in round 2. USA will play Puerto Rico. In the other series, Japan and Korea will play Cuba and either Mexico or Australia (Mexico currently leading 3-0 in 3rd).

WBC bracket

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After being stranded in the Toronto airport, I just got a text that JiP and Falconpride have returned to America. After a brief Toronto hiatus, JiP should be back to his usual 10-20 posts a day.

Uhhh yeah!!! You know my boyfriend is Dominican so he was heated!! But, all of that anger translates into some good slayin if ya know what I mean....and I think ya do!

fantomas, of those DR players you listed, only Hanley (and what about Reyes?!), Volquez (who like all MLB pitchers is far from his best in short stints in early March) and Ortiz (who can only hit) are currently All-Star caliber. While there's no doubt it was an upset, the Dutch were misunderestimated.

EIGHT hours and THREE canceled flights! Damn US Airways! Anyway, yes, we finally made it back. Had a great time. The USA-Canada game was easily the best. Tremendous atmosphere. The Canada-Italy game was interesting, although it was sad that Canada lost and that the attendance was sparse. The first USA-Venezuela game just got ugly once the USA scored 8 in an inning. Unfortunately they didn't take a mercy rule-sized lead until the top of the 9th, when it was too late to matter.

We also saw the Leafs-Islanders game on Tuesday -- getting $45 tickets the day before, and at the box office. Thank you Leafs for being disappointing and thank you Islanders for sucking and giving little reason for anyone to watch one of your games. But the Leafs at least won, which was the only time I saw a Canada team win on this trip. During my 2004 World Cup of Hockey trip team Canada won every game and we saw the Jays win as well.

It was great seeing blueraider again, and special thanks to canmark for his fine hospitality. Sorry we didn't get to see you, Travelpat. Maybe next time?



See what happens when you dare to beat the Phillies in the World Series?

Well I have my order in already to see the Jays beat the Phillies again June 26th here. Your Phillies are in town for our Pride Weekend if you are looking for a reason to enjoy the confines of Pearson Airport again.

There's worry about crowd hostility to Venezuela in this weekend's games in Miami:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/worldclassic...tory?id=3972122

BlogTO has some good photos of the WBC in Toronto.

Mercy! Mercy rule envoked in 7th as Team USA takes a drubbing by Puerto Rico 11-1. USA now meets Netherlands (who lost 3-1 to Venezuela) with the loser of that game eliminated. Attendance at Dolphin Stadium was 30,595, where there were a lot of Puerto Rico fans.

Sunday's games from Petco Park to be Cuba vs. Japan and Mexico vs. Korea.

In addition to attending 3 WBC games in Toronto, we also discovered that the teams were staying at the Four Seasons hotel. I saw some autograph hounds standing outside and waited around to see if anyone famous would come out. Saw Magglio Ordonez, but didn't get his picture. We missed some stars like Mike Piazza, as well as the Canadian stars. Did see some lesser Canadian and Italian players. (If you look hard you might see a famous Outsporter in one of these pictures. )

Way to come out flat USA. Peavy has sucked it up in the tourny.

Jake Peavy was pretty mediocre vs. Canada last week and clearly he was worse tonight. In fact, the USA pitchers overall haven't done well. In every game they've given up at least 5 runs.

Pitching overall has been pretty embarassing for the US, say for Ted Lilly who only gave up a run in his outing in Toronto last week.

Oswalt and Peavy have been a disappointment. I would have have liked to have seen what a young guy like Tim Lincecum would have done on team USA. It's evident that many of the teams don't have their best players whether due to injury or lack of interest. I think Venezuela might even be undeafeated with a healthy Santana on the roster.

Dice K looked dominating against Cuba today with six shutout innings and eight strikeouts.

In a rematch of the final from the last WBC, Japan shuts out Cuba 6-0.

USA leading Netherlands 1-0 after one inning.