The world of baseball revolves around its reference championship, the North American one, the Major League (MLB), which will start as usual between March and April. This year, however, the Major League regular season will be preceded by the World Baseball Classic, or the baseball World Cup, scheduled from March 8 to 21.
The World Baseball Classic has been played every four years since 2006. From this year there will be twenty participants, including Italy coached by Mike Piazza, a famous former New York Mets player and owner of the Reggiana football team for a short time. The national team coached by Piazza is made up almost entirely of players with some Italian origins from MLB, some of whom with rather Italian-American names such as Vinnie Pasquantino, Mitchell Stumpo, Joey Marciano and Miles Mastrobuoni.
The World Baseball Classic is organized under the responsibility of the World Federation of Baseball and Softball (the women’s version of the game) but its success depends more on the Major League, which on the one hand grants its players without major restrictions and offers support to the organization, while on the other he uses the tournament as a driving force for the new season but also as a promotional vehicle for both baseball in general and its league.
Unlike the other major North American sports, the baseball World Cup can therefore count on the direct support of their reference league, which is not a given. In American football, the World Cup has not been played for eight years and the United States participates, and wins them, with a student selection. At the basketball World Cup, on the other hand, the NBA rarely sends its best possible selection, as happened at the last edition.
In the World Baseball Classic there will be mainly major league players, including many of the best ever, moreover distributed among various participants. Champions such as Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, José Altuve, Manny Machado and Shohei Ohtani, who will participate with the United States, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Japan, are among the most incisive, paid and winning players in the league.
Italy, on the other hand, was able to choose among the many players of Italian origins (even very distant ones) in the various MLB teams, or in their affiliates in the minor leagues. Initially the selection of those summoned was even made up exclusively of Italian Americans born in the United States and in some cases never been to Italy. In the final squad, including the reserves, those born in Italy are 4 out of 38.
Among the most experienced are Matt Harvey and David Fletcher, who play respectively for the Baltimore Orioles and the Los Angeles Angels. Vinnie Pasquantino and Nicky Lopez are permanent members of the Kansas City Royals, as are Andre Pallante of the Saint Louis Cardinals. All the others have had major league experience or play in the Minors, the North American minor leagues. But there are also those, like Alberto Mineo, who play in Italy, with Parma, after having trained in the United States.
This edition of the World Baseball Classic will be played in four cities in three different countries: in the United States (Phoenix and Miami), in Japan (Tokyo) and in Taiwan (Taichung). Each of these cities will host one of the four first stage groups. Each group will have two finishers advance to the quarterfinals, after which the tournament will reconvene in Miami for the finals.
Italy’s strongest opponent in the group stage — which they will play in Taiwan — is Cuba, favorites for first place, but Panama and the Netherlands are within their reach. The goal for the national team is to qualify as runners-up and possibly play the quarterfinals against Japan, one of the big favorites after the United States, at the Tokyo Dome, the great Japanese baseball stadium.
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