David Wright's bat alone was enough to top Puerto Rico at the WBC on Tuesday. (Getty Images)

MIAMI – Hang around the World Baseball Classic long enough, as Team USA has, as the Dominican Republic has, as the rest of us have, and you get one of those games that frames the original premise of this thing: Wouldn't it be cool, so cool, if you could get together the best players from the DR and the best players from the U.S., put them on a field, charge $35 for T-shirts, and see who wins?

Now, granted, the "best players" part needs some work. And WBC III suffers from the nicks and bruises of I and II. It won't ever be a perfect event. It can't be. So maybe we never get to the ideal.

But, come Thursday night at Marlins Park, it gets close. A game that should intrigue baseball purists. That could draw more decent baseball out of March. That will stir the competitive spirits of two nations whose teams are routinely favored in these tournaments, while neither has so much as sniffed the championship game.

And, as it so happens, the U.S., land of the free and home of the

The Dominicans rallied from a 4-0 deficit to beat Team Italy in the WBC on Tuesday. (USA Today Sports)

MIAMI – So this is the Azzurri, the hearty and resourceful men of team Italy. Its roster boasts a few proud citizens, many who claim its heritage, and a couple who've been to Olive Garden.

This is the team that, after beating Mexico and Canada one round back, can now add "made the Dominican Republic sweat" to a rather light but developing baseball diary.

That alone did not save the Italians from the losers' bracket of the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday afternoon. They were beaten, 5-4, at Marlins Park. But, they did come seven outs from the greatest upset the nascent tournament has seen, an upset so real for so long that the Dominicans were compelled to celebrate their comeback with not a shred of modesty.

Fernando Rodney fires off his signature arrow after completing the save. (USA Today) Indeed, the Dominicans are beautifully adept at the celebration – pregame, in-game, postgame. Just, this time, Italy and its band of fratelli made them earn every strut and glare, and that would have to do. 

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – In the final hours of World Baseball Classic pool here, national teams from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic had a final game to play. They each had advanced to the second round a day before, so one of the sport's great rivalries would, for the moment, settle only tournament seeding, momentum and, perhaps, a few bar tabs down in Old San Juan.

Robinson Cano helped the Dominican Republic go 3-0 in pool play. (Getty Images)While those in America seek wisps of proof the WBC means something – really means something – to anyone, the folks here filled Hiram Bithorn Stadium on Sunday night, screamed gleefully for the announcement of the Puerto Rican anthem and stood proudly when their players took the field against the favored and villainous Dominicans.

And the players, they got after it. For a better second-round draw, perhaps. For mother and flag and the fun of it, certainly. In places where baseball is not pastime but religion, these inspirations come with the game, and soon they'd both be off to Miami, land of WBC round two, higher

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – They won’t drive Bud Selig’s TV ratings and they won’t fill the ballparks of the World Baseball Classic, but they round out the rosters in places where big leaguers can’t be found or won’t be bothered. 

In a small, concrete ballpark on the north side of town here, where the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico qualified for round two of the WBC next week in Miami on a long, lively Saturday, two pivotal moments turned on two men who’ve done their hardball time. Nelson Figueroa throws a pitch during Puerto Rico's win Saturday. (Getty)

They’ll be forgotten soon enough. The stories will move on to other places. But Rafael Alvarez, a Venezuelan posing for a week as a Spaniard, and Luis Figueroa of Puerto Rico stood in against lifetimes of near misses and against wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time careers. They took their shots. It’s why they were here. Why, in fact, they’ve been everywhere.

Alvarez, at 36, is not quite 6-foot, but is thick through the shoulders and forearms. Since signing with the Minnesota Twins nearly 20 years ago, he’s

Mariano Rivera announced he will retire after this season. (USA Today Sports)

Exit Sandman.

Exit humility, grace, poise. Exit precision. Exit domination.

Exit the man – the ballplayer – you'd like your sons and daughters to admire. Exit the most famous number of all, 42.

In a news conference in Tampa that was, in spite of his wishes otherwise, sad for all the proper reasons, Mariano Rivera confirmed Saturday morning he would retire after the 2013 season. Sitting beside his wife and two sons, Rivera, after 18 seasons and 608 saves, explained, "It's not in me anymore."

At 43, Rivera, who seemingly never tired, is weary of the game's burdens. The life baseball once proposed to a gangly Panamanian boy with a loose arm and relentless resolve had kept its promise, as Rivera had to it. And so he bowed his head, thanked his god and his teammates, had it catch in his throat for just a moment, and prepared to say good-bye.

"Why now?" Rivera posed. "Now is the time."

Then, softer, "Now is the time."

"After this year," he said, "I will be retired. I want

Team Venezuela needs a WBC victory Saturday, especially manager Luis Sojo. (AP)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – On the streets at home in Venezuela, the people still say nice things to Luis Sojo. There, in the open, he's still their Loo-ie, the kid from Barquisimeto with the bad body and wonderful hands who'd grown up to be a big leaguer, a New York Yankee and a World Series champion.

Oh, every once in a while he'll get, "C'mon, we can be better than this," but otherwise the discourse is polite enough, respectful enough and sane enough. For most of his life he'd represented baseball and his country with proficiency and dignity. So there would be no reason to believe seven years ago that the World Baseball Classic would cost Sojo his relationship with so many in Venezuela.

"For me," said Andres Galarraga, who hit the most major-league home runs (399) of any Venezuelan player, "Luis Sojo is baseball, especially in Venezuela." The second-guessing of manager Luis Sojo is common practice in Venezuela. (EFE)

In his third and likely last term as Venezuela's field manager, Sojo is routinely booed in the ballparks of Venezuela, or in ballparks

Hanley Ramirez gets a warm welcome from Jose Reyes after hitting a HR on Thursday. (Getty Images)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Not so long after he was the left fielder for the Chicago Cubs, he was a reserve for the Dominican Republic's World Baseball Classic team, and because of that Moises Alou bears not one burden, but two.

Just recently he signed an autograph. The gentleman thanked him and then, as he walked away from the six-time All-Star, said over his shoulder, "Hey, Bartman says hello."

A week later, Alou smiled thinly.

"I felt like punching the guy," he said.

So, there's that.

Fighting age and injury, Alou retired after the 2009 WBC, a tournament in which the well-regarded Dominicans failed to advance out of the first round. The Netherlands beat them twice. Alou was hitless in two at-bats in what was considered a national humiliation.

Four years later, Alou smiled. Yeah, thinly. Anibal Sanchez didn't last long as Venezuela's starting pitcher (AP)

"Oh-nine is like the Bartman thing," he said. "You get asked about it every day."

Some teams would shrug and walk away, scatter to their various big league rosters and the

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Houston Astros have a plan. It sounds complicated, but isn't. Their smart guys seek smart ways to get good players or to make their own players better, and one day we'll find out whether the plan worked. That's about it.

In the meantime, a 107-loss team will be fed to the American League in general and the American League West in particular, places where plans often – but not always – arrive at media conferences in black limousines.

The observation has been made that the Astros will pay their full roster about what the New York Yankees will pay Alex Rodriguez, which sounds inequitable. In reality, however, the Astros and Rodriguez are likely to have similar effects on their division races in 2013. Manager Bo Porter says just about every player in uniform has a shot at cracking the Astros' big league roster. (Getty Images)

The Astros that will cover the ground between what the organization is now and what it will be in general manager Jeff Luhnow's plan are, granted, no-names. I use the term because Luhnow did the other day before an exhibition game against the Detroit Tigers.