I agree with Sean Collier's column, "U.S. influence may hurt baseball classic," March 1, in that the Olympics are not exactly one of the purest forms of sport. It's best to think of the Olympics as the United Nations' athletic cousin. Both are flawed, but what else can you expect when you put that many people speaking different languages together?

However, I disagree with Collier's pessimistic view of the World Baseball Classic (WBC). Major League Baseball has created the WBC as a means to display the game of baseball on a global scale. The tournament is merely an exhibition meant to promote baseball and hopefully increase baseball's market share among world sports. An authentic world baseball tournament would obviously be great, but it's not a realistic possibility right now. With any luck, the WBC will be successful and some day there will be a true World Cup of baseball.