FanHouse World Baseball Classic

ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball broadcast will kick off its 20th season on the air in 10 days when it opens the regular season on the night of April 5 in Philadelphia with the world champion Phillies hosting the Atlanta Braves.

Play-by-play announcer Jon Miller and color commentator Joe Morgan have been fixtures in the booth for all 20 seasons, but the big change to the broadcast this season is that for the first time they will have company. Former Mets general manager Steve Phillips will join Miller and Morgan this season.

The crew talked to the media in a conference call Thursday afternoon, and FanHouse was listening in. The highlights are after the jump.

LOS ANGELES -- It's all about the Wa, the forfeiture of self for the unity and harmony of the greater good, or team. You could sense Wa all around Monday night, as Japan and South Korea engaged in one of the finest back-to-basics baseball games you might ever see.

Wa was there in the sacrifice flies bringing home runners, in beautifully positioned bunts, in terrific pitching duels that caused 54,846 fans at Dodger Stadium to stand and sing for 10 fantastic innings. Fittingly, the World Baseball Classic final lasted a perfect four hours, ending with Japan beating Korea, 5-3, for the championship.

LOS ANGELES -- It's all about the Wa, the forfeiture of self for the unity and harmony of the greater good, or team. You could sense Wa all around Monday night, as Japan and South Korea engaged in one of the finest back-to-basics baseball games you might ever see.

Wa was there in the sacrifice flies bringing home runners, in beautifully positioned bunts, in terrific pitching duels that caused 54,846 fans at Dodger Stadium to stand and sing for 10 fantastic innings. Fittingly, the World Baseball Classic final lasted a perfect four hours, ending with Japan beating Korea, 5-3, for the championship.

LOS ANGELES (March 23) -- Three years since it began, nothing has changed at the World Baseball Classic.

Japan, which won the inaugural Classic in 2006, successfully defends its title, prevailing in a 5-3 extra-inning nailbiter over bitter rival South Korea on the strength of its greatest star.

Ichiro Suzuki's fourth hit in the championship game brings in the decisive runs, finishing off the Koreans for good after their stunning ninth-inning rally against Japanese phenom Yu Darvish.

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In the United States, the World Baseball Classic seems to have become little more than a nuisance to sports fans -- a not entirely welcome distraction from March Madness and a good way for some of America's best players (and some of its second-stringers) to embarrass themselves as they go through spring training in a strange uniform.

In the Far East, the Classic has become almost entirely about winning and to a similar extent about one of the better simmering international sports rivalries this side of a Brazil-Argentina World Cup qualifier.

LOS ANGELES -- Davey Johnson spent the past week eloquently explaining how desperately he wanted Team USA to win the World Baseball Classic, figuring a title would sooth America's sense of entitlement over the sport and silence some of the tournament's grumbling naysayers.

So how to explain Johnson's head-scratching managerial moves Sunday night, decisions that led to Japan beating the U.S., 9-4, in an elimination semifinal game? Why did Johnson keep starter Roy Oswalt in for a brutal pounding even after it became clear the Japanese had his number? Has the bumbling Adam Dunn mastered the vagaries of Dodger Stadium's right field yet? And any regrets over starting Captain America at shortstop, leaving Jimmy Rollins to DH?

LOS ANGELES -- The U.S.' rollercoaster ride at the World Baseball Classic is finally over -- halted by relentless reigning champion Japan and perhaps also some questionable managing by Davey Johnson.

The Americans jumped out to an early lead in the second semifinal, but starter Roy Oswalt was battered for six runs as Johnson watched from the U.S. dugout, only pulling Oswalt with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning after he had surrendered five runs in the frame.

When the powers that be in baseball imagined the World Baseball Classic, this is what they had in mind. Sunday night, Team Japan and Team USA are face off in Dodger Stadium at 8 PM ET in a one-off semifinal with the winner moving on to face Korea in the finals.

Roy Oswalt and Daisuke Matsuzaka will take the mound tonight as the countries that house the top two baseball leagues in the world face off in what might be the most epic baseball game ever played in March. Follow along after the jump where I'll be live blogging the action with some fellow FanHouse luminaries.

LOS ANGELES -- It's easy to mock the World Baseball Classic, to deride it as nothing but a money-making machine for MLB, a global monstrosity that has little to do with forwarding the game and everything to do with padding a few select wallets.

And then you plop down in section 106 Saturday night in Dodger Stadium and in one tremendous burst of an inning, all the negativity dissipates. Korea's Yong-Kyu Lee opens the WBC semifinal game with a walk off Venezuela pitcher Carlos Silva, a pitcher described in the Korean media as "a mighty, ferocious giant," and just like that, tremors start rocking the ballpark on the hill.

LOS ANGELES -- Weary of the genius one cubicle over who thinks it perfectly acceptable to fill out his bracket in pencil, with liberal use of the eraser? Tired of the friend who swears she follows college basketball but still can't pronounce Gonzaga? Think it's about time someone gagged Dick Vitale with a rosin bag?