As good an idea as next spring’s World Baseball Classic is – and, as I wrote in this space yesterday, it is an excellent one – a good idea poorly executed is worth no more than a bad one.

A variety of problems plague this attempt at setting up a World Cup for baseball, ranging from practical issues such as what Japanese teams feel is an inequitable distribution of revenues to more abstract concerns such as whether the tournament is to be genuinely international or just a bit of American cultural imperialism.

In the long term, provided Major League Baseball and its partners are sufficiently committed to the project, these problems can be solved. In the near term, there is potential for the inaugural tournament – to be held in March 2006 – to turn into a disaster.

The basic problem seems to be that in their rush to finally make the long discussed event a reality, the organizers neglected to think through certain implications of their decisions. For instance, neither MLB owners nor players particularly wanted to interrupt the schedule in the middle of the summer, forfeiting a couple hundred games and their attendant revenues. Nor, probably, could they have done so even had they wanted to – teams’ broadcast partners have their say, as well. So the tournament will be held at a time of year when players are still preparing for the long season.

This poses any number of issues for player health and effectiveness. Say the Cubs’ Mark Prior is selected as a member of the American team. At a time when he would normally be limited to around 75 pitches in spring-training games against lineups stocked with fringe players and prospects, he could end up pitching in a game televised worldwide against a Dominican lineup featuring Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero, Miguel Tejada, David Ortiz, and possibly Alex Rodriguez. Either he will pitch as he normally would in spring, leading to a game that represents something less than the height of competition, or he will pitch at full exertion, putting himself at risk for injury or diminished effectiveness in September 2006, when the Cubs could be counting on him to pitch them to a division title.

Another example of a hastily made decision that could undermine the tournament is the baffling choice of venues. The 16 teams invited to the tournament are divided into four pools. The first – consisting of Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea – will reasonably enough play in Japan. The second pool – Puerto Rico, Panama, Cuba, and Italy – will play in Puerto Rico. The other two pools will play in Arizona and Florida, where, coincidentally enough, MLB conducts spring training.

While there are no doubt sound logistical reasons for this, it’s puzzling that South Africa, the Netherlands, Australia, Venezuela, Canada, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic should be expected to play for national pride on American soil. All games after the initial rounds will be played in major league stadiums, making this in many ways seem less like a genuinely international event than like Tommy inviting Billy over to his house to play ball.

This may seem reasonable to Americans convinced of their own superiority in all matters baseball; it will seem less so to Dominicans and Venezuelans, who will note that their national teams are at least equal to America’s.

The Dominican team, after all, in addition to the above-named murderers’ row, could feature starting pitchers Pedro Martinez and Bartolo Colon, 49-save man Francisco Cordero, and a lineup that would count Alfonso Soriano, Jose Guillen, and Aramis Ramirez among its worst hitters.

Venezuela doesn’t quite have the offensive talent of the D.R. (then again, neither does America), but no lineup featuring Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera and Magglio Ordonez will need to scratch for runs. The nation also boasts a stunning variety of infielders, from devastating hitters like Carlos Guillen and Melvin Mora, to defenders like Cesar Izturis and Omar Vizquel. It also has what could be the best pitching in the tournament: Cy Young winner Johan Santana, Carlos Zambrano, and Freddy Garcia are all Venezuelans, as is closer Francisco Rodriguez, who in 2002 had an October Mariano Rivera could envy.

Relegating these teams to something like second-class status goes against the ideals of equality between and among nations on which such international competition is at least theoretically premised. Similarly, Mexico and Canada (which with Rich Harden, Jeff Francis, Erik Bedard, and Eric Gagne could have the pitching to stun the world and win the whole thing) could easily have hosted games in their own stadiums instead of playing the entire tournament on foreign soil. In some ways, this makes the Classic seem like just another way for MLB to promote its brand.

That’s a shame, because simply by doing its part to ensure that the best players play the game as well as it can be played, MLB will be doing all it needs to promote itself. If this were done with a bit more humility, common sense, and willingness to compromise, the tournament might even do something more.

The first World Baseball Classic will be an experiment; for it to become a recurring event, all sorts of kinks will have to be worked out, and all sorts of ideas will prove failures. The most important thing is patience. Great ideas are worth carrying out well.