Bud Selig Questions Team USA's Intensity: Player Fires Back

Major League League Commissioner Bud Selig put his foot in the mouth after Team USA was eliminated in the World Baseball Classic. Selig said:

"We have to try to push up the intensity for the U.S. team and have to find ways to get our best players and make sure they're out there,'' Selig said during ESPN's telecast. "Everybody who has ever played [in the WBC] loves it ... We have to pick up the selection process. We need, as the other countries do, to get the very best players we have.''

Team USA had plenty of top name talent such as New York Yankees superstar Derek Jeter and reigning National League MVP Jimmy Rollins so for Selig to say they didn't have the horses is just a fallacy.

As for the "intensity" remark, it rubbed the competitors on the USA side the wrong way. The Chicago Sun Times asked relief pitcher Matt Thornton of the White Sox about Selig's comments and he fired back:

"For someone to say that, and I heard other people say that, no one was in the dugout but us," Thornton said Tuesday, two days after the U.S. was eliminated in the semifinals of the WBC in a 9-4 defeat to eventual champion Japan.

"And our team was into it, every single game. Everyone was prepared, ready and battling. And they wanted to win it all. The intensity was there. We didn't win it, but you couldn't say the energy and life wasn't there because it was.

"[Selig] was never around. He wasn't in our clubhouse, he wasn't in our dugout. It was a great experience for everyone. I think everyone in the game was trying to win. … I hear these comments people are making, and it's like 'What are you talking about?' We were going after it."

Maybe Selig should do us all a favor and not open his mouth so he doesn't make any more silly statements in the near future.