There are plenty of things to like about the World Baseball Classic. Just not enough to make it worth its considerable cost.

Three years ago, Team USA was a huge disappointment, failing to advance to the four-team semifinals. I covered one game in Arizona, watching a USA team with Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira fall to mostly minor leaguers from Canada.

It wasn’t a terribly inspired performance.

The Americans got 10-run ruled by Puerto Rico in seven innings Saturday night. It was so bad that the USA’s Mark DeRosa didn’t even know the event had a 10-run rule.

But playing this tournament in March makes no sense to me for a number of reasons. The most important of those has largely gone unnoticed.

If you have bought your Rangers opening-day tickets, you have noticed it’s not until April 6. Last year they played their season opener on March 31.

If avoiding a week of cold-weather games is a good idea in some cities, consider the costs.

Baseball’s regular season ended on Sept. 28 last year. This season ends on Oct. 4.

Does anyone remember a cold, rainy World Series concluding in Philadelphia on Oct. 27? Remember our esteemed commissioner, Bud Selig, changing rules by himself and stating that there will be no rain-shortened games in future World Series?

In all likelihood, this year’s World Series will end in November. That is the real cost of the World Baseball Classic.

It seems like the Rangers have been in Arizona forever already. They still have more than two weeks of spring training games remaining before breaking camp.

Starting the season a week late means ending it a week late. The most important baseball games of the year have a great chance of being played in the middle of the NFL season in football weather.

I’d rather see a World Baseball Classic played in November than March. It’s possible that fans would be burned out by then and ready to move on to other sports.

But how much attention is the World Baseball Classic finals going to grab when it’s played in the middle of March Madness?

Mind you, I’m not a hater of this concept. The games are fun. Pudge Rodriguez and Pedro Martinez auditioning for jobs near the end of Hall of Fame careers is kind of cool.

Team USA and the Netherlands nearly had a bench-clearing brawl Sunday night after a late Netherlands home run ticked off the Americans.

For all of the great players not participating in this event, many more are. But if I’m a fan of the Red Sox or the Braves or the Brewers, I’m already sweating injuries suffered by last year’s MVP Dustin Pedroia and Chipper Jones and Ryan Braun.

Pedroia says it’s no big deal, not an oblique injury. His manager Terry Francona also has taken the high road, saying he could have been injured just as easily in a Boston spring game.

That’s true, but any time a team loses a player while doing something out of its control, it’s a bad thing.

Still, the injuries aren’t the worst part of this event.

It’s not what the World Baseball Classic is doing to the start of the baseball season that’s troubling.

It’s the impact it will have nearly eight months from now, pushing the World Series into November, that baseball fans should be upset about.