Dice-K Matsuzaka joins Ichiro on 2009 Japan WBC team

November 21, 5:31 PMAsian-American Sports ExaminerMichael Street

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AP/Steven Senne

When the World Baseball Classic (WBC) debuted in 2006, uncertainty and controversy swirled around it. Would the athletes play as hard for their home country as they do for their pro teams? Would they get injured in the process? Would anyone watch it? Would anyone care?

After the dust settled, the answers were loud and clear: yes, no, yes and emphatically, yes.

The teams turned out to be far more competitive than expected, and although eventual champion Japan was a pre-tournament favorite, the US team didn't even make it out of the second round. The final foursome of Japan, South Korea, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic showed us what many already knew, that Latin American players were among the best in the game, but also something less expected: Asian players were in that same elite company. 

South Korea was more of a surprise than Japan, which has a robust national baseball league that is nearly equal to the US major leagues. But Korea would build on its WBC success to win the Olympics in Beijing, defeating powerhouse Cuba and finishing the tournament undefeated.

Going into this year's tournament, eyes are focused more than ever on the Far East as the future of baseball.

So it came as no surprise today when Daisuke Matsuzaka, the $100 million pitcher from Japan who went 18-3 this season with a 2.90 ERA and 154 Ks in 167 IP for the Boston Red Sox, modestly announced that he'd "accept the offer if I'm asked to play."

Yeah, and maybe Manny Ramirez might get asked to play for the DR again.

Dice-K finished the 2006 tournament with a 3-0 record against a 1.38 ERA, a performance that earned him the MVP award and proved that he could pitch against any competition, certainly a factor in his huge contract he would sign with Boston later that year.

Although the team has a new manager, with the Yomiuri Giants skipper Tatsunori Hara replacing the legendary slugger Sadaharu Oh, there seems little doubt that Dice-K will be "asked to play." After all, the uniform he wore in the 2006 victory is now hanging in Cooperstown.

Along with that uniform hangs the batting helmet of Ichiro Suzuki, who announced earlier this year that he'd also be playing for Japan. Though he's a little older, at 35, Ichiro is still a leader on the team, both on and off the field.

At the 2006 tournament, he was named to the All-Tournament Team, one of three Japanese players to receive the honor. He hit .364 for the tournament, with a hit in every game he played in, 12 hits in 33 ABs. He is certain to be named to the Japanese team, and will likely be as important this year as he was in 2006.

Another amazing fact about the 2006 WBC was that only two players in the final tournament—Ichiro and Akinori Otsuka, the team's closer—played in MLB. Cuba, of course, has its own national league and doesn't voluntarily allow its players to sign with US teams. Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league is a bit more lax, although its players must play for nine years before they are free to sign with MLB teams.

This accounts for some of the reason why so few MLB players made it to the WBC finals, but another reason is simply that other countries are producing fine ballplayers of their own. And, as the tremendously successful 2006 tournament showed, when this kind of parity is achieved, everybody wins.