I’m a big baseball fan, love the game, enjoy the strategy, cliche comment, & cliche comment. Beyond the result of this tournament not impacting me, there’s a simple desire to watch people I will or have to care about when this thing is done. It makes no sense to me, nor should it to you. Regular season games three weeks into the season mean a thousand times more than anything in  the World Baseball Classic. With the Houston Astros relocating to the American League, there’s already enough to keep track of in the majors! Now I’m being asked to care or at least take interest in players I don’t know, nor will know after we crown a champion of the universe. My goal here is not to persuade you not to watch it with some fancy anti-baseball argument, because that’s not fair and I love the sport. I’ll save you the arguments about injuries and pulling players from their teams in spring training. I don’t think presenting a list of extensive tv ratings will change your mind, no I’m thinking a simple revelation of what you may be missing should do the trick.

Sunday, March 17th – 9pm – WBC – Pool 2 Runner-Up @ Pool 1 Winner

Other events:

Selection Sunday (NCAA)

NASCAR at Bristol 1pm (FOX)

Knicks @ Clippers 3:30pm (ABC)

Tampa Bay Championship Final Round (PGA)

Family Guy 9pm (FOX)

Let’s begin with the obvious here, selection sunday is going to take a lot of people’s eyes off other events. This year in college hoops has been impossible to call, #1′s going down, and upsets a norm each night. Expect with the heavy amount of gambling being done on this event, to influence people wanting an idea of where teams will play. Bristol and the PGA event at Tampa are all driven by Danica and Tiger respectively, maybe a Rory McIlroy is in play late. I wouldn’t expect too much pop here but the NASCAR faithful will be tuned in to the race, and PGA is always a wildcard. Get a healthy Melo vs. Lob City and you have an overhyped yet highflying ABC event. Cap it off with a new Family Guy, here’s the description of the episode from my Fios guide: ”Peter ends up in the hospital after the guys decide to go skydiving to liven up their lives and befreins Mahmoud, a muslim man who convinces him to convert to Islam; Quagmire and Joe are suspicious of Mahmoud’s Intentions.” Checkmate.

Monday, March 18th – 9pm – WBC – Pool 1 Runner-Up @ Pool 2 Winner

Other events:

Heat @ Celtics 8pm (ESPN)

Knicks @ Jazz 10:30pm (ESPN)

Dancing with the Stars season premiere (ABC)

Who knows what marvels Lebron James and his travelling group of hoopsters will perform on this Monday night? What more do you need than a chance to see a couple of teams who dislike each other, trash talking, and Lebron? Did I mention Lebron? Throw that second game in, especially if the WWL is able to market that “must win” for the Jazz. TV throws their haymaker with DWTS season premiere. Here’s a glimpse of who’s who: Wynonna Judd (paired with Tony Dovolani)
D.L. Hughley (Cheryl Burke)
Jacoby Jones (Karina Smirnoff)
Lisa Vanderpump (Gleb Savchenko)
Andy Dick (Sharna Burgess)
Victor Ortiz (Lindsay Arnold of “So You Think You Can Dance”)
Zendaya Coleman (Disney Channel, “Shake it Up”; with Val Chmerkovskiy)
Aly Raisman (Mark Balas)
Ingo Rademacher (“General Hospital”; with Kym Johnson)
Kellie Pickler (Derek Hough)
Dorothy Hamill (Olympic star, figure skating; with Tristan McaManus)

I dont watch this reprehensible show, but Jacoby Jones is enough of a character to pull some male interest, at least from sports fans. Besides Lebron James is on.

Tuesday, March 19th – 8pm – WBC – Semi 2 Winner @ Semi 1 Winner

Other events:

NCAA Tournament – First Round – Dayton, OH

The only hope you have here is for a blowout, otherwise it’s the play-in game first round, and it’s not even teams fighting for the right to be a 16 seed anymore. Some of these games have a 10 or 12 seed mixed in there. Get a bigger name team that struggled this year in this game, you have more than enough reason to watch. Oh and if I forgot to mention, it’s the NCAA’s and you have at least $500 in brackets filled out! Admit it, you aren’t watching one second of the championship round of the WBC, so why waste your time and watch it now?

(Pic c/o angelswinblog.blogspot.com)