One of the stories in baseball news recently involves the participation — or non-participation — by a Japan representative team in the 2013 World Baseball Classic.
The story on Aug. 10 from Kyodo News indicated Japan will not play the year after next, unless it gets a more favorable monetary deal from Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, the organizers of the tournament. Supposedly, this will be decided before the end of this month.
For similar reasons, the Japanese were at first reluctant to enter the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006, but they finally joined and won it all. The same thing happened prior to the 2009 edition of the 16-team event.