I had been planning on doing this for the past week; however, I have been lazy and sick.  I know this kind of stuff isn't as exciting as the Braves at spring training, but for me it was a really cool and experience and I figured that some of you might find it interesting.

When I figured out that the Finals were in LA, just a short 5 hour drive from where I live near Sacramento, I knew I couldn't miss it.  So I called up my college roommate and we decided to make a weekend trip of it!  I went to all three games that were at Dodger Stadium in Los Angles, CA.  For those of you who forgot, didn't watch, or didn't care, that included Venezuela vs. Korea, Japan vs. USA, and Japan vs. Korea.

First some pictures of Dodger Stadium:

This was my first time in Dodger Stadium, I really liked it, it had good food!  However, the seats were kind of facing a weird direction (towards center field), probably a function of being an older stadium, so I had to look to my right in order to see home plate.  It was very difficult to see when anybody stood up in front of you.

Teams being announced:

Neat flag-carrying thingy:

Carlos Silva, do you think he knew he was about to get lit up?

Who is ready for some baseball???

Sad Carlos, Happy Korea:

After the top of the 1st:

Magglio!

Korean Player:

All-in-all the Venezuela/Korea game was by far the worst of the three, it was over pretty quickly and there wasn't much to cheer for if you were a Venezuela fan, but I guess a 10-2 score will do that to you.  One thing I though was great was the passion of the Korean fans.  Chants, cheering, thundersticks, there was never a quiet moment.  I really dug it, it was unlike any US game that I have ever been to, with the exception of maybe the playoffs.

Korean Fans:

Team USA:

BOOOOOOO!

New and Improved Brian McCann!

Team Japan:

The USA/Japan game was much better, Brian Roberts led off the game with a Bomb, and Oswalt was solid for a while.  Dice-K struggled throwing 69 pitches, 39 for strikes, through 3 1/3 innings, I really thought we were going to get to him.  However, Japan got to Oswalt first in the 4th inning with 5 runs.  Team USA fought back with a 2-run triple, then Derek "I kick small animals" "I am horrible at fielding" Jeter screwed up allowing Japan to tack on some much needed insurance runs.  Why wasn't J Roll playing defense??  Yu Darvish came in and closed us out with the USA losing 9-4.  Again, I noticed the difference in passion between the Japanese players and fans when compared to the USA.

Japanese Fans:

I heard that these folks also make it rain in the club!

Self Explanatory:

Cool Looking Trophy:

Korean Fan Booing Ichiro:

Teletubbies like baseball too!

Signs Galore:

Our old friend pitched, and pitched well!

Darvish gave away the lead, but Ichiro to the rescue!

Hopefully I don't get in trouble for this being to long, but the final game, Korea/Japan was intense and ridiculously loud!  Probably the best game I have ever been to, neither group of fans really sat down all evening long, you could feel the tension, you could see how much the fans wanted this game, there was tons of chanting, noisemakers, and signs.  After attending the WBC, I would highly recommend the experience to any baseball fan.  Yes, changes need to be made to the format, and I have went into that else where on this website so I won't go into it again.  Experiencing international baseball for the first time was a treat for me, hopefully Team USA will eventually show the passion of some of these other teams and be able to bring home the trophy to the birth place of baseball!

Greatest sign I saw at any game:

However, the best sign I saw while in LA was at a used car dealership near the field:

We were happy campers after the weekend!

Please let me know if you want to know more, or if you are planning a trip to Dodger Stadium and you need some info.

Matt