No matter where they go, the NC Dinos just can't seem to get away from all of the drama and intrigue that surrounds the World Baseball Classic in Asia. Two days ago, the newest entrants in the Korean Professional Baseball League were supposed to take the field in an exhibition matchup against the South Korean national team. Before the game even started, four umpire trainees were revealed to be Taiwanese spies. Earlier today, the Dinos had a second exhibition scheduled against the Cuban national team. Surely this game would happen without a hitch, right?
WRONG! Yonhap News Agency is reporting today that the game has been canceled because the Cuban team insisted the Dinos use their balls. While negotiating the game, apparently the two sides had agreed that they would each pitch with the ball of their choice but when the Cubans showed up, they insisted that both teams use their balls exclusively. Because this ball had large seams, the Dinos worried about the health of their pitchers. The Cubans produced two more balls, including a "mysterious ball" (those are the words of an NC Dinos official quoted in Yonhap's story, not mine) before the two sides agreed to disagree and canceled the game.
This probably sounds strange to the average reader, but there are actually quite a few ways that baseballs can be different. If you compare a high school ball to an official MLB ball, the seams are usually raised quite a bit on the high school balls, though those vary from place to place. Japan's NPB used a smaller ball than Major League Baseball for years, until struggles with the official WBC ball in 2006 and 2009 lead them to change their official balls to more closely resemble the American balls.
What puzzles me is why Cuba would want to use a ball with raised seams in a meaningless exhibition game. Big League Stew (who brought this story to our attention) has a picture of this year's WBC ball, and it looks a lot like the official MLB ball. That means that it's probably bigger with flatter seams than any of the balls that Cuba insisted on using. Isn't the point of exhibition games to get familiar with aspects of the tournament that the individual squads might not be completely ready for? Aspects like an official tournament baseball that's different than what a team's pitchers might be used to? Most importantly: what does a Cuban Mystery Baseball look like?
Cuban's first official WBC game is against Brazil, who apparently has a national baseball team, on March 2nd at 12:30 PM in Fukuoka. Once again, my interest is piqued.
