MLB Showdown Obsession

 Growing up in the 90's, I played more than a few of those old baseball games. Some had the licensing from MLB to use the team nicknames, but not the MLBPA permission to use the real player names, and there were other games that had it reversed. For example, anyone who played "Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball" could play as the actual Big Hurt...on the Chicago (A) team, not the White Sox. Anyway, those old games also gave you the choice when you started a new season for a custom amount of games and innings you wanted to play in case you were too busy as a kid to play an entire 162 game season...or if you didn't trust your cartridge game to last all 9 innings (I'm looking at you, NES games). Anyway, those options come to mind when I recall the...unique situation that 2020 turned out to be. The panic and fear of the unknown that the Coronavirus caused as it spread throughout the world triggered the immediate suspension of all sports. The NBA and NHL all stopped mid-se...

 Puerto Rico is a tiny island, but they hold a disproportionate amount of baseball talent for their small size. This is a fact that they exploit the heck out of in international competition. They seemed like a lock to escape the opening round of the WBC like they did in 2006 and 2009, but they were ready now to push their run even further in 2013. While they shared Pool C with the powerful Dominican Republic, it just meant they needed to beat up on the other teams. And beat up they did as they were victorious over Spain 3-0, then Venezuela 6-3. Their advancement secured, their matchup with the Dominican Republic was merely for seeding, so their 4-2 loss wasn't devastating. What was more devastating was their round 2 loss to the United States, 7-1. Now at risk in the losers bracket, Puerto Rico had no room for error as they ousted Italy 4-3 to set up a rematch with the USA to determine who would advance to the semi-finals with the Dominican Republic. Victory this time belonged to Pu...