Thursday, January 19, 2006

Team USA officials added Jeff Francoeur to the roster for the World Baseball Classic. He, Chippa, and Tim Hudson are now on the 52-man squad that will eventually be whittled down to a 30-player roster.

Jeff is one of ten outfielders on the squad and faces some stiff competition: Lance Berkman, Barry "Steroid Junkie" Bonds, Carl Crawford, Johnny "I Sold My Soul To The Devil" Damon, Luis Gonzalez, Ken Griffey Jr., Matt Holliday, Vernon Wells, and Randy Winn.

Even if he doesn't make the roster, you gotta be impressed by a guy who's played only half a season in the Majors being part of something as big as this.

In related news, I was only narrowly squeezed out of consideration for Team USA catcher by one of the Molinas' twelve-year-old nephews. Okay, I'm lying.

It was their twelve-year-old niece. But she's got a wicked strong arm, dammit.

2 comments:

Adam said...

This is wild, isn't it. Francoeur comes up, makes a huge impact, plays half a season, and now apart of Team USA.

I know the preliminary rosters are released and that 30 will be the limit of players per team. Does that mean out of your 60 player roster you can pick what 30 to play each game? Like Francoeur isn't on the roster the first game, but he plays in the second game. Or is the 30 player roster the same through the whole tournament? I was wondering about that.

Steven said...

From my understanding, only the 30 players will be available throughout the tournament; you make the team and then you're on the team.