WBC final: Japan vs. Korea

I watched most of the game (that's the World Baseball Classic final). As a baseball fan, I dug it. Very high level of play, especially the fielding. It's clearly different from U.S. baseball, though: U.S. leans more on home runs -- probably because there are more sluggers in the U.S. game -- while Korea and Japan play more small ball. So they will have their cleanup hitter bunt a runner to second early in the game. I don't think you'll see Ryan Howard laying down a lot of bunts this year, no matter what the situation.

Also, the announcers were all over the Korean manager's decision to pitch to Ichiro with 2 outs in the top on the 10th--especially after the runner on first stole second, leaving first open, and the at-bat went on and on. Made sense: Do you really want to pitch to one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball (on any continent) with the championship on the line and a base open? And the announcers were proved right with Ichiro hit the 9th (?) pitch of the at-bat into center to drive in 2 runs -- the eventual winning margin.

BTW, winning Japanese pitcher was named Yu Darvish. It seemed like every other player on the team had a name like Suzuki or Johjima or Okajima or Yamazaki or something other very Japanese-sounding. What's the ethnic background of Darvish?