Baseball World Cup 2009 - Tournament Review

The first ever international baseball event was a series of exhibition games that took place during the 1904 Olympic Games. The 28th Edition of the Baseball World Cup will be commencing on September 9 up to 27th September 2009. This event will be hosted by seven European countries and a total of twenty teams will be participating.  It is not the very first time that the game is being held on this continent, it has happened five times before.

Two European baseball powerhouses, Italy and The Netherlands will be joining in the organization by Spain, Russia, Sweden, Germany, San Marino and the Czech Republic. The most notable part of this World Cup is that it has been decided to make this tournament environment friendly and can be thus called as a “green event”.

One more thing that is happening for the first time is the number of participants to a maximum of 20 and the 3 applying format with three rounds that will determine the finalists. The first round starts with five group A four teams with the best three that will advance to the second round. The venues for this preliminary round are Barcelona (Spain), Moscow (Russia), Regensburg (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden) and Prague (Czech Republic).

These sixteen teams will be split into two pools that will play each another in a round robin format in Netherlands, Italy and San Marino. After round robin's baseball results, the best four teams of each group will go into the third round, hosted by Italy, to play a crossover game with the other four teams. The two leaders after this phase will play the final match on September 27, 2009.

The favorites of this tournament are coming from North and Central America in addition to the Asian teams.

Teams Participating in 2009 World Cup:

Group A (Prague)
1.    Czech Republic
2.    Australia
3.    Chinese Taipei
4.    Mexico

Group B (Barcelona)
1.    Spain
2.    Cuba
3.    Puerto Rico
4.    South Africa

Group C (Stockholm)
1.    Sweden
2.    Canada
3.    Netherland Antilles
4.    South Korea

Group D (Moscow)
1.    Russia
2.    Great Britain
3.    Japan
4.    Nicaragua

Group E (Regensburg)
1.    Germany
2.    China
3.    United States
4.    Venezuela

Bye for Second Round
1.    Italy
2.    Netherlands

Italy to Be the main Host

The recent press conference has confirmed that Italy will be the main host of the Baseball World Cup 2009. Secretary General of Italian NOC Raffaele Pagnizzi said that “My idea is that baseball has a real chance this time”. It seems that this upcoming event of World Cup baseball 2009 will be a very significant step towards the reinstatement of baseball on the global platform.

A successful tournament could not only give a boost to the development of baseball in Europe but it could prove to be a praiseworthy effort to bring the sport back to the Olympic Program at the international Olympic Congress in Copenhagen in Denmark that are falling in the year 2009 only. You, me and we all are looking forward for a fantastic tournament!

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