Ouch! China clobbered by Japan in World Baseball Classic

If you were hoping to follow the Chinese baseball team throughout the World Baseball Classic, you better act fast. They got housed by Japan last night, 18-2 -- the game was called after the eighth inning due to the "mercy rule" -- and they are currently losing 4-0 to Korea in fourth inning. Not that you could follow them if you wanted to -- even though the first-round games for China are played in nearby Japan, they don't appear to be televised in China. We just flipped through the channels and there were two basketball games on -- NBA and CBA -- but no baseball. Shanghaiist's satellite is not working right now, but a check of the TV schedule at espnstar.com shows absolutely no baseball on air for the next two weeks. People were calling this the World Cup of baseball. Hmmmmmmmm.

You can watch the games online if you want, for a fee of US$9.95 for the entire tournament. Wonder how that will look on our crappy ADSL connection. Anyway, Korea is now winning 5-0 -- you can follow the games live for free at worldbaseballclassic.com -- and all is not well for Jim Lefebvre's men in red.

For more info on China's team go here. Here's the entire tournament schedule. Here is the TV schedule (American, we think). And here is ESPN.com's coverage of the event.

Photo from the AP.