2006 World Baseball Classic

Tournament between national baseball teamsTemplate:SHORTDESC:Tournament between national baseball teams
Template:Infobox international baseball tournament

 File:2006 World Baseball Classic Map.PNG
The **2006 World Baseball Classic (WBC)** was the inaugural tournament between national baseball teams that included players from Major League Baseball. It was held from March 3 to 20 in stadiums in or around Tokyo, Japan; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Lake Buena Vista, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona; Scottsdale, Arizona; Anaheim, California; and San Diego, California.

The first two rounds had a round-robin format, which led to two teams being eliminated on run difference tiebreakers: in the first round, Canada was eliminated despite its 2–1 record, due to a blowout loss to Mexico as well as failing to run up the score on South Africa; and in the second round, eventual champion Japan advanced despite its 1–2 record, due to a blowout win over Mexico and losing more narrowly to South Korea than did the United States. The higher-seeded teams generally advanced to the second round, including Puerto Rico and Venezuela, as well as the teams mentioned elsewhere in this summary.

Although South Korea defeated Japan twice in the earlier rounds, they were matched against each other again in the semifinals as the two teams emerging from the same second round pool, and Japan won that game to advance to the final against Cuba (which had defeated the Dominican Republic in the other semifinal). Japan defeated Cuba 10–6 to be crowned the first champion of the World Baseball Classic.

Daisuke Matsuzaka, a NPB veteran who was little-known outside Japan at the time, was crowned the Most Valuable Player of the tournament. The following year, he made his debut in the Major Leagues with the Boston Red Sox.

## Format

The first World Baseball Classic featured 16 teams in a round-robin. Each team played the other three teams in their pool once. Teams were ranked by winning percentage in the first round, with the top two teams in each pool advancing to the second round, where the teams from Pools A and B (in Pool 1) and the teams from Pools C and D (in Pool 2) competed against each other in another round-robin.

Teams were ranked by winning percentage in the second round, without regard to the results of the first round, with the top two teams from each pool entered a four-team single-elimination bracket, with the pool winners and runners-up from each pool facing each other in the semifinals. The winners of the semifinals then met to determine the World Baseball Classic Champions.

In the final, the team with the higher winning percentage of games in the tournament were to be the home team. If the teams competing in the final had identical winning percentages in the tournament, then World Baseball Classic, Inc. (WBCI) would conduct a coin flip or draw to determine the home team.

In the first two rounds, ties were to be broken in the following order of priority:

1. The winner of head-to-head games between the tied teams;
2. The team allowing the fewest runs per nine innings (RA/9) in head-to-head games between the tied teams;
3. The team allowing the fewest earned runs per nine innings (ERA) in head-to-head games between the tied teams;
4. The team with the highest batting average (AVG) in head-to-head games between the tied teams;
5. Drawing of lots, conducted by World Baseball Classic, Inc. (WBCI).

## Rosters

Main article: 2006 World Baseball Classic rosters
Each participating national federation initially submitted a 45-man provisional roster. Final rosters of 28 players, which also must include a minimum of 13 pitchers and two catchers, were later submitted. If a player on the submitted roster was unable to play, usually due to injury, he could be substituted at any time before the start of the tournament.

## Venues

 File:Dontrelle Willis, World Baseball Classic, Angel Stadium, Anaheim, USA.jpg
Seven stadiums were used during the tournament:

## Pools composition

The teams selected for the inaugural World Baseball Classic were chosen because they were judged to be the "best baseball-playing nations in the world and provide global representation for the event." There was no official qualifying competition. In addition, there were no world rankings by the International Baseball Federation to determine the strength of the countries.

## References

* Unofficial chat forum of The World Baseball Classic (Archived)

1. ↑ "World Baseball Classic". Archived from the original on 2015-01-23. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
2. ↑ "IBAF World Ranking Released". MyGameday. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
3. ↑ "IBAF publishes first-ever World Ranking". Mister-Baseball. Retrieved 20 August 2022.

## External links

* Official website

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