The NYT reads this blog

It's the only sensible explanation for this, on page 1 of the sports section of the New York Times:

The [World Baseball Classic] was so successful that Major League Baseball must re-examine its place in international baseball. Specifically, it must rename its fall classic. The season-ending event played in the United States each fall is dramatic and exciting, but it is not the World Series... There must be a change in how we refer to the October ritual when the best teams from the American League and the National League play a best-of-seven series. Call it the Fall Classic, call it the M.L.B. Championship. Just don't call it the World Series anymore.

Word.
And a perfectly good reason to put up another picture of our new friend, baseball-mitt-bra-model. Arigato to japundit.com. And even though it would have been funnier if Cuba had won, major props to the Japanese team for clinching the title.
Flags pic from here, via deadspin.