The World Baseball Classic ended Monday. And true to its name, the deciding game was a classic as Japan edged Korea 5-3 in 10 innings.

The final contest of the 16-nation tournament was a riveting, emotion-packed affair between two arch-rivals with national pride at stake. It embodied everything that can make baseball competition on an international stage so compelling. It was the equivalent of a one-game, winner-take-all showdown between the Yankees and Red Sox—only more.

And yet, the United States, for all its time-honored respect and appreciation for baseball, didn’t get caught up in all the fuss. From start to finish, this country refused to jump on board and embrace the WBC for anything more than an annoying distraction to a bunch of meaningless exhibition games being played in Arizona and Florida, while awaiting the real baseball season to begin in earnest on April 5.

Frankly, only with Japan’s classic win in the final game of the WBC may the realization have finally sunk in that all of us—all but the few die-hard supporters of the WBC—missed out on something that was pretty compelling all along. We just didn’t know it, or didn’t want to believe it.

Certainly, the Classic had its share of captivating moments prior to Japan upending Korea yet again in the tournament, this time with the title on the line. That was pretty historic stuff when the Netherlands beat the mighty Dominican Republic, not once, but twice in Round One. The emotion of some high-profile big leaguers wearing Team USA uniforms was also pretty real when the U.S. rallied in the bottom of the ninth inning in Round Two to beat Puerto Rico, to earn a spot in the Final Four. But even with those memorable moments, the WBC never really established a foothold.

In the final analysis, the players who represented the U.S. in the World Baseball Classic are the only faction of all Americans who played any kind of a role in the WBC that led to its dramatic and successful conclusion, that should take a bow.

Established major-league stars like Derek Jeter, Roy Oswalt, Jake Peavy and Jimmy Rollins took time out from their normal spring-training regimen to represent their country in a major international competition, all with the noble pursuit of growing the game globally—all the while cognizant that they would be subjected to scorn from a doubting media and a doubting public if they should end up with anything short of a gold medal.

It’s a shame that certain segments of the media trashed both the event and the U.S. team at every opportunity it got; that fans in this country, taking their cue from the media, stayed away in droves or showed general indifference, while the fan bases from other countries got caught up in the euphoria; that major-league teams were so paranoid, and even indignant, about refusing to allow the best players in the game from participating in the event.

The very fact that so many established big leaguers bought into the concept of the World Baseball Classic should have been reason enough for the media and fans alike in this country to embrace the event a great deal more than they did. Unfortunately, it took a lot of the joy out of the competition because they didn’t.

Frankly, the tournament lucked out that it had Japan and Korea playing in the final game as those countries, including a large Japanese and Korean population in California, embraced the tournament all the way through and helped to pack Dodger Stadium on the final night. It’s safe to say that a final game between Venezuela and the home-standing U.S. would not have drawn such a large and enthusiastic crowd.

Admittedly, the tournament wasn’t perfect. The format, in particular, is in need of tweaking as teams, especially those that reached the Final Four, played far too few games over too long a period for the tournament to gain momentum and players often sat idle for long stretches between rounds—and even games. But there’s nothing wrong with playing the event in March; frankly, it’s the only time of the year that it makes sense. Sixteen teams are also ideal.

The challenge for tournament organizers over the next four years will be to come up with a format that works, that doesn’t spread the event out for the better part of three weeks. It needs to come up with something more meaningful to galvanize a skeptical American media and public at large. The future success of the tournament depends on it.

A number of different formats for the future have been tossed around, from simply condensing the current format into fewer days, to moving the final round to the All-Star Game break—and even replacing the All-Star Game altogether with the WBC every four years. Both have merit, as do various hybrid versions.

My own proposal would be to split the tournament into three phases—the same as already exists, but with modifications. The last two phases would be formatted along the lines of the College World Series, with eight teams split into two divisions, and a double-elimination format used to determine the two finalists. Those teams would then meet in a best-of-3 final—in July.

That proposal isn’t radically different from the format that already exists, but my plan would provide an exemption for the six elite baseball-playing nations in the World from having to participate in the preliminary round. For the sake of argument, let’s say Cuba, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the U.S. (the six countries that advanced deepest into the WBC this year) would be given byes into the Round of Eight, with the remaining two spots to come from winners of two preliminary-round tournaments involving the other 10 nations in the WBC field. Such an eight-team format could be played in less than a week, with the winners of each pool playing a best-of-3 final over a four-day period in July.

Not only would the absence of players from those six countries not interrupt spring training as significantly as it does now, but it would guarantee fans of those six countries that their teams would be in the tournament’s Round of Eight. By playing a best-of-3 final in July, fans of the two surviving countries could also have several weeks to plan accordingly—unlike the existing format where there is little or no time to properly market each round based on the teams that survived the previous round.

The two qualifying teams in the Round of Eight would come from the preliminary phase—two five-team, round-robin tournaments involving countries already in the WBC field. Effectively, those 10 would be the only teams that would have to win a qualifier in order to reach the next round.

It’s even possible down the road that there could be an extra set of preliminary rounds to accommodate emerging baseball countries around the world like Brazil, the Czech Republic, Colombia, Nicaragua, Russia and Spain in their desire to become involved in the World Baseball Classic. After all, there are upwards of 100 countries around the globe with established baseball federations.

Unfortunately, there are four years before the next Classic. But that will give Major League Baseball, the Player’s Association and all the competing baseball federations plenty of time to come up with a format that truly works. It will also give them plenty of time to sell a doubting American media and fan-base on the merits of the WBC, and just how compelling the event can be. Japan and Korea proved that Monday night.

Another four years just might get a few more people thinking that the World Series, as we know it, might be ready to become a true World Series, that teams like Japan (the two-time WBC champion) and Korea (the reigning Olympic champion, in addition to being this year’s WBC runner-up) might deserve a shot at that elusive title, as well. This country may think, in its own arrogant way, that the U.S. stills plays the best baseball in the World, but the WBC has given us one more reason to believe that the real World champion may reside elsewhere. It’s time America wakes up to that reality.