World Baseball Classic 2013

The start of the 2013 World Baseball Classic is March 2nd. The World Baseball Classic is a tournament that was started in 2005 once the International Olympic Committee removed baseball as an Olympic sport. The first World Baseball Classic Tournament was played in 2006. The winner of the first World Baseball Classic tournament that year was Japan. The second World Baseball Classic was played in 2009. Japan ended up winning the 2009 World Baseball Classic tournament. The 2013 World Baseball Classic marks the third time the tournament has been played. In the past, the countries that played in the World Baseball Classic were countries that have a rich baseball tradition. I believe over the past few years, the game of baseball has grown. There are countries that are competing in this year's World Baseball Classic that did not compete in past tournaments and also did not have a rich baseball tradition. There are 12 teams that participated in the 2009 World Baseball Classic that were invited back to the 2013 World Baseball Classic. The first round of the tournament has teams broken up into pools. The teams in Pool A are Japan, China, Cuba and Brazil. Pool B consist of South Korea, The Netherlands, Australia and the Chinese Taipei Baseball Team. The teams in Pool C are Venezuela, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic and Spain. The teams in Pool D are The United States, Mexico, Italy and Canada. Each team in the pools will play teams in their own pool once. The top two teams in each pool will advance to the second round. The second round consists of 2 pools. Pool 1 will be the top two teams in Pool A & B and Pool 2 will have the top two teams in Pool C & D. The second round is a double elimination tournament. The winners of the first games will play each other in the second game. The losers will play each other in an elimination game. The winner of the elimination game will play the winner of the non-eliminating game in another elimination game. The two teams that remain in the tournament will play each other in a game that will determine seeding for the Semifinals. The winner of the Semifinals games will play each other in the Finals to determine a champion for the World Baseball Classic. The first round games for this year's tournament will be played in Japan, Taiwan, Puerto Rico and Phoenix. The second round games will be played in Japan and Miami. The finals will be played in San Francisco.