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The tournament held every four years to crown the world champions of baseball is back. In the World Baseball Classic, a combined 16 national teams play in four separate pools to earn bids in future rounds, all with hopes of vying against the most elite teams in order to earn the top title in the sport. Team Japan has won the first two titles, with the inaugural WBC being held back in 2006. By local time standards, the worldwide tournament kicked off on Saturday, with Australia taking on Chinese Taipei in Taichung, Taiwan in Pool B action. Other teams in Pool B include Korea and the Netherlands.  Games will continue through March 19th, when the finals are slated to be held in San Francisco, CA. Pool A also begins on Saturday and features China, Brazil, Cuba and Japan. Those games are set to be played in Fukuoka, Japan. Pool C, set to be played in San Juan, Puerto Rico beginning on Thursday, features, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and, of course, Puerto Rico. ...

When reviewing the MLB Network's Phillies preview on their 30 Clubs in 30 Days program, their version of the All-time Phillies Homegrown team jumped out at me as pretty remarkable. Here's what the squad looked like. SP- Robin Roberts C- Bob Boone 1B- Ryan Howard 2B- Ryne Sandberg 3B- Mike Schmidt SS- Jimmy Rollins RF- Greg Luzinski CF- Richie Ashburn LF- Del Ennis RP- Ricky Bottalico Certainly, there are players on that list who are indisputable. Howard, Schmidt, Ashburn and probably Ennis (as I think Chuck Klein does not qualify because he was not drafted by, or originally signed by, the Philadelphia Phillies) have no competition in their respective positions. Ferguson Jenkins, also a Philadelphia product, could be an option at starting pitcher over Roberts, but there is likely no incorrect choice with either one of those. The most debatable assignment on the list is Ryne Sandberg. Aside from the initial displeasure of seeing Sandberg on the list, because he achieved his succ...

Hey, Audrina Patridge...even though I am not sure why you are famous, you are considerably attractive and you are wearing a baseball jersey, so PhoulBallz.com readers will likely listen to what you have to say. As such, let me ask you something. Why do the Dodgers think they can achieve success with guys the Phillies let go years ago? Yeah, I don't know either. Surely, it is not ideal that the Phillies are still paying a portion of Jim Thome's contract this season, while he attempts to help last year's NLCS runners up get over that hump this season. And naturally we all miss the Wolf Pack, especially since many of us watched Randy Wolf come all the way up through the Philadelphia system, as well as Padilla's Flotilla. And who doesn't still have a place in his/her heart for Larry Bowa? Bowa will always be part Phillie. However, as dear as Phillies phans might hold certain times with those guys in their hearts, phans also know that their team is better off with those ...

In the news this week, we heard about the tradition started by Ronald Reagan of outgoing US presidents leaving the incoming new president a note, in the oval office desk. I really think it's quite annoying that the media was permitted to have photo opportunities with the letter but the public is not permitted to learn what might be contained in the letter, but all-in-all, it's a pretty cool tradition. This presidential custom got me thinking what it might be like if the same sort of practice stood in place for baseball managerial changes. What if Larry Bowa wrote a letter to his unknown managerial successor, prior to leaving Gary Varsho in charge in the closing days of the 2004 Phillies season? What would that letter look like...? To whom it may concern, Hi, my name is Larry. I was the manager here before. The team stunk and they always blamed ME. Some guy named Patrick was always causing issues and snubbing me. The guy could barely bat his weight, for average, and he wanted ...