Spring training to go international?

The morning online surf's up, and when I came across this one, I thought I was still in a daze from watching Neftali Feliz make Indians hitters look like Little Leaguers last night.

http://www.springtrainingonline.com/200908061415/news/tucson-officials-court-japanese-team-for-spring-training.htm

Yes, this article has some age on it (8 days), but with Jamie Moyer and Pedro Martinez in the headlines, everything old really is new again! (Moyer and Pedro are Phillies, and Big Unit was a Giant until he got hurt... the N.L. really IS the 'Senior Circuit'!)

Let's hop in the fast-forward machine to March 2010. The Great American Baseball Adventure will (hopefully) be just a few weeks away. Tim Lincecum's hair will be glam-rock long. And from Tuscon Electric Park, we'll hear this:

"Welcome baseball fans! Another spring has sprung for America's National Pastime! Grab your peanuts and Cracker Jack, sit back, and enjoy this matchup between the Arizona Diamondbacks... and the Hirshioma Carp!!"

And the needle scratches right off the record.

Strange part about this is that I'm not totally disgusted by the idea of a Japanese team training in Arizona next year. Hey, it's an exhibition season, and we spent half of 2009's Spring Training watching the Netherlands play the Brewers, so why not have the Nippon Ham Fighters spend a month in triple-digit heat?

MLB teams might learn a few things from the disciplined training regimens of the Japanese teams. And please don't give me that "I don't wanna see Ryan Braun face a pitcher I don't know" treatment. In most March games, Braun gets two at-bats against pitchers you don't know, then waltzes down the right field line toward the clubhouse by the 4th inning.

It's actually a creative way to handle the scheduling oddity of having 15 teams in Arizona. Remember 1997, when baseball proudly announced it was expanding to Tampa Bay and Arizona? MLB pounded its own chest and boasted of six evenly matched divisions, all with five teams each. What parity!

And then someone figured out that 5x3=15 teams in each league. And, since it still takes two teams to play a baseball game, somebody was left either not playing or playing interleague... every single day of the season.

Bud Selig remembers. He had to fix the mess by having his own Brewers switch leagues, meaning we got to see Jose Hernandez strike out 200 times AND play the infield.

So give me a 16th Cactus League team from Japan. Heck, put a Cuban squad in Florida to make 16 teams there. While we're scouting out minor league prospects, we'll get a good first look at some international players too.

And if they're good enough, maybe one of those teams can switch places with the Kansas City Royals.