Major League Baseball should change 'World Series' name to 'US-Canada Series'

With the US team again doing less than stellar in the second World Baseball Classic this year, it's time for Major League Baseball to change the arrogant and grossly inaccurate "World Series" name for its championship series.

Japan won the first World Baseball Classic in 2006 and beat the US team in a semifinal game in 2009 [the US also lost to Venezuela twice and Puerto Rico once]. The US team didn't even make the four-team finals tournament in 2006, having lost to Mexico, South Korea and Canada.

So arguments can be made that there could be better teams in other countries. We will not know until there is a true "world series" playoff involving teams in the US, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and other nations.

While people in other sports such as the NBA and NFL sometimes refer to their champions as "world champs," they do not call their final championship series a "world" series. Major League Baseball calling its championship series the World Series dates back to the 1880s. Some call that arrogance on the part of top baseball officials, others just call it a tradition that would be too confusing and demeaning to change. Whatever, it is inaccurate, to say the least, to label MLB's champion as "world champs." And it should be changed.

Being a part of the largest political gathering in U.S. history

I took my kids and their mom to be a part of history for the swearing-in ceremony of President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009. It was an amazing event. The national park police estimated 1.8 million people were present, which would be the largest gathering for any political event in the U.S. and probably the largest ever in U.S. history.

News reports claim that 3 million attended a parade for the Boston Red Sox after they won the World Series in 2004 and 2 million crowded Philadelphia's parade for the Phillies last year. But those were media estimates, not official ones from an organization specializing in crowd estimates.

So the debate on who attracted the largest crowd will rage on. I guess it does say something about our society when sporting parades top the current wiki list of largest crowds in U.S. history.

The satelite photo shows the Obama inauguration crowd from a unique perspective. FYI, my family is in the blob between the Washington Monument and WWII Memorial. You see us clearly, don't you?