Team Boli Stunned by Netherlands

Team Netherlands upset the heavily favored Dominican Republic 3-2.

Ouch. This has to be the biggest upset thus far in the short history of the WBC. Winning pitcher for the Netherlands? Fat Sid.

The other surprise in WBC action today is Japan's rout of South Korea. Team Japan winning was not that much of a surprise, but the final score was. The game ended in seven innings, due to the newly instituted mercy rule (15 runs after 5 and 10 runs after 7).

Pundits in Japan was questioning the strength of the Japanese team, as they only beat the fourth seeded team China by a score of 4-0. Coming into this tournament, fresh off of their gold medal in the Beijing Olympics, team Korea was actually the favorite.

Mercy rule loss. I think I owe Chinese Taipei an apology, they're not the most gutless team in this tournament. Oh wait, they lost to China last night. Never mind.

Speaking of Chinese Crap-Pei, their fans are not taking the failure at the WBC very well. A couple of the baseball web bulletin boards had to shut down today, due to the threats of violence and use profanity towards the national team. Words like "embarrassment" and "national shame" were being tossed around, and those were the ones they can print in the newspapers. People have called for the ouster of the president as well as the management of the national baseball team.

That sounds about right. Let's see, the mainlanders started playing baseball, what, 6 years ago? and Taiwan is the only team they have beaten (twice in a row now) in international competition.

Chinese Taipei's stay in the World Baseball Classic was 21 hours. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on if they were planning on using it as an excuse) they didn't have to travel across time zones; hell, they probably didn't even need a hotel - they could have just kept their luggage in one of those airport lockers.

In the latest news from Taiwan, there are several legislators calling for new special tax incentives for corporate sponsored baseball teams. Wow, I guess they really care about their baseball.

This chick looks pissed.

I am placing the blame for the losses completely on this chick with the overused palms out victory sign