Regarding the Jan. 8 article "NPB, MLB commissioners to discuss prospect of true World Series": At the start of the 2009 Major League Baseball season, there were 229 foreign-born players on team rosters, comprising 28 percent of all players. Thus, MLB teams, with their collection of so many of the best Americans and other players from around the world, already compete in a 162-game regular season plus two rounds of playoffs to determine which two teams deserve to participate in what is reasonably termed the World Series.
In contrast, Nippon Professional Baseball's insistence on maintaining a four-player limit for foreign-registered players on top team rosters shows, if anything, that Japan plays what is accurately termed the Japan Series.
If NPB wants to be a part of a "true World Series" and have its top team represent Japan annually against the MLB champion, then it first needs to sincerely embrace the internationalization of the game by removing the foreign player limit.