I think it's pretty true, or close to it. For example, in 2003 Lleyton Hewitt started the year No1 in the world and his biggest goal for the year was to win the Davis Cup.
The point I was trying to make was that the Davis Cup is far more important to Australian players than to American players. Do you disagree?
The point was not to compare baseball and tennis. The point was to say that competing internationally is more important to Australians (and athletes from other countries) than Americans, which I find curious. Do you disagree?
Maybe I didn't word that well. I meant: enjoy the great baseball and stop freaking out about the possibility of injuries. The point I was trying to make was this: whenever there is international competition in sports with strong club competitions, there is obviously the possibility that a player will get injured and then be unavailable for their club later on. But in other contexts this seems to be less of a problem to the clubs and fans than for the WBC. Fans don't watch the FIFA World Cup thinking, "I wish X player on my favorite club team wasn't playing in this exhibition tournament. He might get injured and miss next season."
I'm not sure that's it, personally. Sure, other countries don't have the top leagues in the sports you mentioned, but they have top leagues in other sports. To keep going with Australia because I was Australian once upon a time, it has the top rugby league competition in the world, the top provincial rugby union competition in the world (shared with NZL and RSA), the top Australian rules football competition (obviously), the top domestic cricket competition, etc. But despite this, representing Australia is still the pinnacle for so many athletes in sports where that is possible.
Another theory could be that the U.S. uses its position as the world's only superpower (and the wars, politics etc that go along with it) as a way to display patriotism and doesn't 'need' the sporting field to do it as other countries do.
To me, that doesn't seem like a very valid reason not to enjoy the WBC. Personally, I think suddenly having top class baseball outside the normal season is a huge bonus.
But getting back on track, I just think it is a shame if U.S. fans don't get behind this tournament the way fans from (especially) the Caribbean countries do. It's a great tournament, many of the world's best players play in it, there's a huge amount of national pride, and it's so cool to see the way the different countries play the game when they come together. Plus, more baseball.
Dude, again, you're being very polite but it's hard to go back and forth on the quote quote quote thing.
1) You're very wrong on the level of national enthusiasm within Australia for the Davis Cup. You use as an example one player or specific generations of players (maybe because you indicate you haven't been here for a long time) and seem completely unaware of the level of discontent for the Davis Cup over the last several years from players like Bernard Tomic, Nick Kyrgios and Thani Kokkinakis let alone Leyton Hewitt's dummy spits and in fighting and Pat Rafter's coaching fights. This is important because though, as I'll note in a second, your argument is inherently flawed for being a false equivocation, it's not even a correct example within the flawed argument. Your argument itself is broken by your internal logic.
Now, you may have been trying to make the point that the Davis Cup is more important to Australia than America, as you state. But if that was the case, you failed. Generally when you have to explain your point and only introduce an element of that point (the American Davis Cup importance only is referenced now for the first time) it's never good, but you not only failed to use a good example - Australia and the Davis Cup is notoriously unstable - you also failed to even discuss how Americans care about the Davis Cup (if you want to make that argument, you actually have to make it). Then, like I promised, you come to the crux of the issue - it's completely irrelevant to the discussion of the WBC unless you attempt to make it relevant. You didn't even try. False equivalence is a logical failure that runs when you quote one unrelated example and place it against another unrelated example
Ultimately my response to the new question - and it
is a new question - that asks "is the Davis Cup far more important to Australian players than to American players?" is: I don't care. I hate tennis. And this has nothing to do with the WBC.
2) The point might not have been to compare baseball and tennis; but you did compare them. A comparison of why international competition might have, again, been relevant if you'd acknowledged, argued and tried prise out the differences in the sport that make them completely incomparable. False equivalence at a base level knocks it out; but you didn't even try to make the argument which is worse.
3) First - you just decided to speak on behalf of all world fans when it comes to football (soccer). And you misrepresented them. As well as cherry picking the world cup vs other international competitions, you're wrong. Fans of football teams absolutely fucking hate when their players go on international duty.
Second - false equivalence, yet again. You just named another sport, loosely compared it, and failed to even explore an argument. You leave us wondering whether you even know anything about football. You might. I will generously offer that I'll assume you do. But how could we know? You haven't even tried to make a point. You just loosely named another organisation, for the second time incorrectly stated a position, and walked away.
There are genuinely huge differences between how a WBC and the World Cup are run. I'm not going to make that argument for you because that shit's on you to try and prove. But trying to compare them without doing any work... as I've said, as an argument or point it's a false equivalence at the base level and devoid of anything resembling work at any other level.
4) You make a good response to Kliq's lazy point about domstic level sports, which isn't hard because Kliq seems to be trying to actually trying to make your point by suggesting countries that aren't the US don't have ongoing, powerful domestic sporting leagues. But you then try to turn it into something it's not. Because you undermine yourself; Rugby League and AFL players don't give a shit about representing their country, any more than people (edit), from America picked for the WBC. Cricket is all about international representation because club and domestic leagues literally act as a AAA or AA system for people only trying to get into the National team. The Rugby competition is by virtue of having 4 different nations involved already an international league, the very thing MLB is not.
5) Your last theory isn't a theory; it's a question. A theory uses any kind of supporting argument to make a point.