World Baseball Classic

Infobox sports league
current_season=
logo=World_Baseball_Classic_Logo_with_out_text.pngpixels=150px
caption=The World Baseball Classic logo
sport=Baseball
founded=2006
teams=16 (Finals)
continent=International
champion=bb|Japan

The World Baseball Classic, sometimes abbreviated WBC, is an international baseball tournament, first held in March 2006. It is sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation and created by Major League Baseball, the Major League Baseball Players Association, and other professional baseball leagues and their players associations around the world. The second WBC is scheduled to take place in 2009, with subsequent tournaments held every four years thereafter.

The WBC is the first international baseball tournament for national teams to feature professional players from the major leagues of North America and Japan (thus the first real "World" Series); the Summer Olympics have regularly featured college and minor-league players because the Games conflict with the major league seasons in both regions, and the Baseball World Cup historically has not had major leaguers participate. In addition to providing a format for the best baseball players in the world to compete against one another while representing their home countries, the World Baseball Classic was created in order to further promote the game around the globe.

History

The tournament was announced in May 2005. [Schwarz, A. "Baseball World Cup set for '06". retrieved from [http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2057633 ESPN.com] on February 24, 2007] Major League Baseball (MLB) had been attempting to create such a tournament for at least two years; negotiations with the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA)—the players' union—and with the team owners had held the plan back. Owners, notably New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, had been concerned about their star players being injured in international play before the beginning of spring training, and the professional season. This was a concern for the union as well, but their primary objection was with drug testing: MLB wanted the stricter Olympic standards in place for the tournament, while the union wanted current MLB standards in place. Eventually, a deal was reached on insurance for player contracts and a fairly tough drug testing standard. MLB teams would not be able to directly block their players from participating.

Similarly, Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and its players' association had a disagreement over participation in the tournament. While the owners initially agreed to the invitation, the players' union was concerned about the time of year the tournament was scheduled to take place, as well as their right to be better represented when the next tournament is (presumably) to be held in 2009. After four months of negotiations, NPB officially notified MLB they were accepting the invitation on September 16, 2005.

Rules

A pitcher cannot pitch until
# a minimum of four days have passed since he last pitched, if he threw 50 or more pitches when he last pitched.
# a minimum of one day has passed since he last pitched, if he threw 30 or more pitches when he last pitched.
# a minimum of one day has passed since any second consecutive day on which the pitcher pitched.A pitcher cannot pitch more than
# 65 pitches per game in Round One of the tournament.
# 80 pitches per game in Round Two of the tournament.
# 95 pitches per game in the Semifinals and Final of the tournament.
* A pitcher can still finish a batter's plate appearance even if the limit is reached, but must come out after completing the plate appearance.A game will be a called game if the leading team is ahead by
# 10 or more runs when the opposing team has batted in at least seven innings.
# 15 or more runs when the opposing team has batted in at least five innings. [ [http://ww2.worldbaseballclassic.com/2006/about/index.jsp?sid=wbc World Baseball Classic: About ] ]
DH rule applies for all the games.

Results

Future plans

As of 2008, plans call for the World Baseball Classic to be repeated every four years following the 2009 event, so the third installment of the Classic would not occur until 2013.

Other plans for the 2013 World Baseball Classic include possibly expanding the number of participating teams to 24 with qualifying rounds as a preface to reach the main competition.

In the 2013 World Baseball Classic, Bud Selig said that he may consider the Dominican Republic a candidate to host games.

External links

* [http://www.worldbaseballclassic.com/ World Baseball Classic] "official site"
* [http://www.mlb.com/ Major League Baseball]
* [http://www.baseball.ch/ International Baseball Federation]

References

ee also

*Baseball at the Summer Olympics
*Baseball World Cup
*World Series