MAJORBLOGS.NET - 03.18.09 -  The pseudo-Olympic baseball competition of the World Baseball Class (WBC) is under way. We do not cover it. Here is why.

The WBC is a big coat of whitewash over the disgrace of baseball being dropped as an Olympic sport because, as International Olympic Committee (IOC) drug testing expert Dick Pound told MLN in our SZ interview on 01.01.2008:

“I would say the behavior of MLB in relation to drug use was certainly an important factor in the IOC's decision to take baseball off the Olympic program. Even though it's governed by a separate federation and not by MLB itself. The message that baseball was sending was such that I think the majority of the IOC members said: 'Hey, they are going to behave like this, we don't need them in the Olympics'."

MLB bristled at having to comply with the testing regimens for banned substances in athletes to which all other athletes in all other sports competing in the games have had to submit themselves. They are reapplying for 2016, but the likelihood is that, after having annoyed the IOC to no end, that Frisbee, nude curling or pick-up-sticks would probably be admitted first.

"Baseball has been having just the kind of spring that confirms every IOC concern, particularly about a Major League Baseball drug-testing program that doesn’t approach Olympic standards," said GlobalPost columnist Mark Starr in a recent column.

It should be the WSC, World Steroid Classic. The Olympics won't sanction your doped up players? Have your own games every four years, and thumb your noses at the IOC.

That is showing America's youth a tough line on substance abuse, all right.

Beyond the ethical stink, though, that the WBC has, it also siphons off valuable players, major and minor, from Spring Training teams. It is harder to get your MLB club ready for the season, or form minor league clubs, without having all of your players competing for jobs.

The WBC is not much of a world competition. If you were the third cousin of a guy who dated a girl from the Netherlands, you can make the team. Set in spring, when no one is primed up, the games are uneven to sloppy. Players aren't allowed to play from MLB clubs for fear of injury, so the mix of players ranges from top-drawer athletes from MLB and the mother country (sort of) to minor league players still well back in their development. It is certainly not indicative of the best that the world can produce.

For the WBC to work, it should be at the end of the season. Every season. The top team in the USA and Canada faces teams from around the world for the real World Series. No handing over players from MLB teams. A real world series. Let Japanese pride bring on its best. Let whatever other nations want a crack at the magnates of money that suck up the world's best talent. It will encourage some of these countries to step it up. Like America's Cup, upsetting MLB will be the goal that the rest of the world seeks, and MLB seeks to prevent.

It would be interesting, relevent, and saleable.

As it stands, the WBC is not a showcase of world baseball; It is an embarrassment, a pseudo-Olympics, a tacit admission that Major League Baseball is still too steroid-laced to make it through international drug testing standards.

If they want a spot in the world stage other than letting the "World" Series champions take on the real world, then MLB and the PA had best figure out how to really bring their steroids policies, and usage control, up to international standards and apply for readmission to the 2012 Games.

My shiny two.