The party’s over.  Life as we know it can resume.  And I’m sure that those of you who are Korean are glad that I was never able to successfully convince anyone to make last night’s game a competition for the rights to Dokdo.

In both an amazing game and a crushing blow to Korean national pride, Japan won last night, defending their title as reigning WBC Champions.  And if we may, I’d like to take a moment for my Korean brothers.  Not only will they have to swim home, but those of them who have not yet done their time in the army have just blown their shot at an exemption.

Yeah, that’s right.  If the Koreans had won last night’s contest, there was a pretty decent shot that those boys on the team who had not yet done their service would have been given a pass.  Apparently, in Korea, they totally don’t believe in the Principle of Separation of Sports and State.

Despite the fact that it remained a close-nail-bitingly close-competition for the duration, Japan had Korea’s number from pretty much beginning to end.  Korea struggled against the dominant Iwakuma who allowed four hits and two runs in 7.2 innings.  Japan, on the other hand, had a constant string of runners on base.

In the end, and not surprisingly, Ichiro Suzuki was the hero of the evening.  Despite the fact that Korea came back from a one run deficit in the ninth, Suzuki was the guy to break up the 3-3 tie in the 10th. Two outs.  Eight-pitch at-bat.  Two-run single. Totally epic.

Here’s the thing about Suzuki: it’s not just that he’s really, really good at baseball.  (Though he is really, really good at baseball.)  It’s that he has a way of making it look easy, graceful, artistic almost.  As my friend and yours, Chris Yamaoka, suggested, it’s like things move more slowly for that Suzuki.  Hell, maybe he’s somehow related to Hiro Nakamura and was endowed with the ability to travel through space and time to control the outcome of certain events.  I mean, they’re both Japanese.  And all those guys are related, right?

On the subject of drawing offensive links to unconnected Asian people, it can’t go without saying that Joe Morgan’s coverage of this game was totally borderline.

A shocker, I know.

Comments like, “these Asian people,” “Asian hitters,”  “the thing about Asian people is” were free-flowing throughout the evening.  There was also a distressing inability to remember names.  Because they were all so confusing and, well, Asian.  “Chang, I mean Choi, I mean, the Asian guy.”

Generally speaking, a lot of this week’s coverage was weird in this way.  In someone’s interview with Suzuki last night, they asked him if he was able to take a Zen approach to the game.  Would that same journalist have asked a Haitian player if he had created voodoo dolls of his rivals?

But, hell.  I guess I should go a little bit easier on people.  They mean well, even if they’re possibly a little bit ignorant.  (And by ignorant I mean predisposed towards racial profiling.)    They were, after all, just getting into all the excitement I guess.

I mean, as an mlb.com beat writer wrote, this was a game “that had more twists and turns than kabuki.”