He built it--and they came

Bud Selig has love-hate relationships around the baseball world--George Steinbrenner included--but he was onto something with the Classic.

He said the fans would follow if the players did..and the first round ratings confirm it. Canada's upset of the USA was seen by almost 2 million viewers, a number Simon Cowell can scoff at, but the most watched telecast on ESPN 2 this year and the third most watched non-playoff baseball game in ESPN history. Let's not forget it was an afternoon game.

While I'm praising Selig's vision here, let's dispense with another bit of nonsense. To those who point to March Madness and decry what a terrible time March is to schedule the Classic, let's hear one decent alternative?

April--and mess with opening day traditions while eating into the regular season?

Midsummer--baseball owners peak revenue period and awfully humid in Latin America?

September--pennant season?

Or November--a month after most sore ballplayers have already hit the golf courses?

March really is the only time to play it and those who take it seriously have months to put in some extra work. (Roger sure looked sharp.)

As for college basketball, baseball fans craving opening day can pay attention to both. And it was smart of MLB to schedule an off-day tonight with all the conference finals.

As for me, I'll focus on brackets on Monday. Tomorrow we could have four great games:

CUB-VEN at 1 EST
US-JPN at 4
DR-PR at 8
MEX-KOR at 11

My bet is that one, if not two, of these is a semi-final preview.