Tag Archives: World Baseball Classic

Great Britain’s WBC hopes still alive

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Great Britain kept their World Baseball Classic hopes alive on Saturday afternoon with a 12-5 victory over the Czech Republic in Regensburg, Germany.

After a chastening seven-inning 11-1 loss to Canada on Thursday, Team GB knew it was time to win or go home against the Czechs and they proved that they were not prepared to end their time in Germany just yet.

They jumped out to an early 6-0 lead against starter Jan Blazek and while the Czechs showed plenty of battling spirit, Great Britain were always able to keep a distance between themselves and their opponent from them on, in part due to a strong starting outing by Jacob Esch (IP. 6, H. 5, R. 2).

From the Czech’s point of view, they may now regret starting with Blazek rather than Alex Sogard. Sogard pitched in Double-A Stateside this season and showed his quality in 3.2 innings of one-run ball in relief of Blazek.

Manager Andrew Berglund had to share out the pitching innings in one way or another and GB scored runs off Marek Minarik and Jan Homolka in the later innings, so it’s quite possible it wouldn’t have made a difference.  However, both teams were desperate to get off to a strong start after losing their opening game in the tournament. Team GB did just that against Blazek and they never looked back.

Whilst Esch’s starting performance, B.J. Hubbert’s use of some ‘oppo-boppo’ (a solo home run to right-centre) and Albert Cartwright’s 3-for-5 day at the plate caught the eye, veteran GB fans would have found it particularly enjoyable to see GB veterans like Aeden McQueary-Ennis (2-for-5 with 3 RBI), Alex Smith (securing the last four outs on the mound) and Brad Marcelino (a good pinch-hit at-bat in the ninth inning ending with a line-out to the right-fielder) also getting some playing time in such a big event.

Richard Klijn, who has been part of the GB set up through the youth programme and onto the senior squad, is another Team GB regular playing his part in this event and he made four nifty fielding plays at second base against the Czechs.

Klijn did commit an error as well as part of a somewhat sloppy seventh inning and it is little mistakes like that (add on Sam Wiley twice being caught out at third base as two other examples, although to his credit he did go 2-for-4 at the plate) that can be so costly against better teams.

Such slips are always likely to occur when you are stepping up and competing at a higher level than you normally play at. Everything happens just that little bit more quickly and it’s all part of the learning curve. You only improve as a player when you challenge yourself against better competition and players like Klijn will benefit greatly from the experience of this tournament, including the experience of playing alongside some of his new pro-league teammates.

Whilst the Czech Republic’s impressive September of baseball is now over, Great Britain remain alive and will play again on Sunday at 13.00 BST. Their opponents will be the loser of the Saturday night clash between Canada and Germany and either team will be tough to beat.

Team GB understandably will be the firm underdogs, but they say every dog has its day and Sunday might just be the turn of the British bulldog to cause an upset.

Sunday’s game can be watched live online at www.worldbaseballclassic.com.

Team GB’s WBC adventure begins on Thursday

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At 18.00 BST on Thursday 20 September, Team GB will get the World Baseball Classic Qualification Pool 2 under way with a game against Canada in Regensburg, Germany.

We’ve been waiting for this moment ever since it was announced that the WBC was expanding and Great Britain would be one of the 12 new entrants.

The roster has been announced.

The team has arrived in camp.

The Regensburg ballpark is looking great.

Team GB merchandise is available from the MLB shop.

And the official WBC Twitter account confirmed on Tuesday that all games will be available online.

We’re all set to go!

The four-team group includes Great Britain, Germany, Czech Republic and Canada, the latter being the previous WBC entrant who failed to gain a victory in the last tournament (2009) and therefore has to qualify to get back to the main event, which will take place in March next year.

The team that wins the group will go on to the main WBC, joining three other qualifiers who will earn their place in similar qualifying tournaments (one which starts on Wednesday in Florida and two more that will be played in November in Panama and Taiwan respectively).

The teams will play each other in Regensburg using a modified double elimination format competition. It’s a ‘modified’ double elimination format in the sense that the second pair of games (Games 3 and 4) already have one of the participants set. The standard format is for the winner of Games 1 and 2 to meet in Game 3, with the losers of Games 1 and 2 meeting in Game 4.

However, Games 3 and 4 will both take place on Saturday and the organizers understandably wanted the host nation to be playing in the evening (i.e. Game 4). So, the Czech Republic will play in Game 3 and they will face whichever team matched their result from Game 1 (i.e. if the Czechs win their Game 2 against Germany, they will face the winner of Game 1), while the Germans will play in Game 4 and, again, play the team that matched their first (Game 2) result.

It’s difficult to predict with any confidence who will come out on top as it’s a wide open tournament.

Among the Europeans, the recent European Championship results would rank Germany first, followed by the Czech Republic and then Great Britain. However, Team GB have a significantly stronger roster for the WBC while the Germans and Czechs are predominantly sticking with the same players. Great Britain’s manager Sam Dempster and his coaching staff have the task of helping the new players to gell quickly with the Euro holdovers, whereas their European counterparts should benefit from the greater continuity. Canada’s team has a mixture of pro players and it will be interesting to see how they match up against the European teams.

More importantly, anything can happen in such a relatively short tournament. No team proves that better than the Czech Republic. They nearly gained a surprise win over Germany in the recent Euros, before losing to Great Britain in their next game and then pulling off a shock victory against the Netherlands. As in MLB, a strong pitching performance and some timely hitting – or conversely an off-day by your starter and missed chances with runners in scoring position – can decide a single game even if ordinarily there would be a notable difference in talent levels between the two teams.

Team GB have as good a shot as any of the four teams of winning the event – despite their disappointing European Championship performance – but Sam Dempster’s team will know the importance of getting off to a good start. An opening loss to Canada would really put the pressure on, but if they can win that game then the group will really open up for them.

Italy and the Netherlands have just finished their traditional battle for supremacy in the European Championships – the former defending their title – and they are already assured a place in the main WBC event next year. Hopefully there will be another team there flying the flag for European baseball as well.

And you never know, it just might be Team GB.

2012 European Championship begins

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Great Britain’s Senior Baseball Team will jog out onto the diamond in Utrecht, Netherlands on the evening of Friday 7 September to begin an exciting month of tournament play.

Tonight’s game against France (first pitch at 18.30 U.K. time) is Team GB’s opener at the 2012 European Baseball Championships.

The twelve teams involved in the tournament have been split into two groups of six. Great Britain and France are joined in Group B by the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The teams will all play each other once in a round-robin event over the next five days. The top three teams in the group will progress on to the latter stages of the event, culminating in the Final on Sunday 16 September.

Team GB’s Euro adventure has a slightly different feel about it this time around as it is not their only focus. Sam Dempster’s men will move on from the Euros to compete in their World Baseball Classic qualifier in Regensburg, Germany, later in the month (the min-tournament begins on 20 September).

As in football, the Euros historically have been the second most prestigious international event for European teams, just behind the World Cup. The emergence of MLB’s World Baseball Classic in 2006 as the premier international tournament effectively moved the two more-established events down one slot in the pecking order.  The WBC has been expanded for the 2013 event, the third time of it being staged, affording Great Britain its first opportunity to try to qualify for the main event next year.

Team GB has never won the European Championships and would dearly love to do so, but if the team and us fans had the choice right now of winning the Euros or qualifying for the main World Baseball Classic event in 2013 I’m sure most, if not all, would favour the latter.

Of course, no team can hope to choose which event they want to win. Achieving either major goal will be a real challenge due to the fierce level of competition the team will face.

The WBC roster will be quite significantly different, and in theory significantly stronger, than the smaller Euro roster and should have a better chance of success, particularly in the shorter format that comes with the WBC qualifier.

That doesn’t mean the Euros will simply be a warm-up for the main event though.

There is much to play for even alongside the tournament title itself. A solid performance will put Team GB back into the top Pool A of European teams (meaning we would not have to go through a qualifier to get to the next European Championships, as we had to do this time around) and finishing in the top four would book a place at the next World Cup.

More than anything, beyond qualification for other events and potential medals and trophies, there is the simple pride of wearing the GB jersey and cap and representing everyone involved in baseball in the U.K. Baseball and softball were not part of the Olympics – and there’s no need to go back over that depressing tale one more time here - but the team can still be part of a glorious sporting summer for the nation.

I’ve no doubt that Sam Dempster and his team will do us proud in the Euros and, once completed, we can then look forward to the WBC qualifier with even more excitement.

Further details about Team GB’s September events can be found on the BBF website.

Full details about the European Baseball Championship can be found on the CEB website.

Great Britain’s World Baseball Classic confirmed

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Great Britain’s World Baseball Classic adventure will take them to Germany this September and see them compete in a four-team group alongside the hosts, Canada and the Czech Republic.

Details of the qualifying stage of the WBC were announced at a press conference in Regensburg, Germany on Monday. The qualifying tournament is scheduled to take place between 20-24 September 2012.

The success of the first two WBCs has resulted in the tournament expanding from 16 to 28 teams thanks to the addition of a new qualification stage.  The four teams that failed to win a game in 2009 – Canada, Chinese Taipei, Panama and South Africa – have each been put into a four-team group which they will need to win if they want to return to the big stage.

More importantly, the qualifying group stage gives 12 new teams a chance to make it to the WBC and Great Britain are among them.

Ever since Team GB’s participation was announced last June, British baseball fans have been excitedly looking forward to finding out where the group will be staged and who we will be competing against.

Great Britain last played in Germany during the 2010 European Championships. The Armin-Wolf-Baseball-Arena in Regensburg, Germany, was used to host a group containing China, Germany, USA and Venezuela in the 2009 Baseball World Cup and it should prove to be a great host venue.

Tough competition

As expected, Great Britain will be facing some tough competition in the qualifying group. Sam Dempster’s team will not be favourites heading into the event, but don’t rule them out from springing a surprise and qualifying for the main World Baseball Classic, scheduled to take place in March 2013.

Canada are the experienced WBC team, although they have just fallen short of qualifying for the second round in both of the first two times that the main tournament has been staged.

In 2006 they gained a memorable 8-6 victory over the U.S., followed by an 11-8 win over South Africa; however a 9-1 defeat to Mexico landed them with an early exit.  In 2009, Canada hoped to make the most of home-field advantage with their Pool being held at the Blue Jays’ Rogers Centre. It didn’t turn out that way. The U.S. got their revenge by narrowly defeating Canada 6-5 before Italy dumped the hosts out of the tournament by winning their game 6-2.

While the WBC hasn’t quite gone to plan for them, Canada recently won the bronze medal in the 2011 World Cup. The main WBC rosters are essentially put together in a short space of time, so the team’s World Cup performance is perhaps more indicative of the level of play we can expect from them in the WBC qualifier, with a roster containing players that have experience in playing together.

Germany are an emerging force in European baseball both on and off the field, as shown by the facilities in Regensburg that will be used for this Pool.  The Germans hosted the 2010 European Championships and finished third with only the two established Euro superpowers Italy and the Netherlands ahead of them. Based on that showing, they will be a tough team to beat on home soil.

As for the Czech Republic, they and Team GB were evenly matched in the 2010 European Championships. Both finished fourth in their respective First Round group – with only the top three teams progressing to the Second Round -  and that meant they were pitted against each other in a Seventh Place play-off game. The Czech’s won that game 8-4, so Great Britain have a score to settle there.

Provisional Schedule

The provisional schedule for the group shows that it will follow a double-elimination format, with Team GB getting the event underway with a game against Canada at 7 p.m. local time on Thursday 20 September (that is still subject to change, of course).

Germany will play the Czech Republic the following day and then there will be two games on the Saturday, with the two first-game winners facing each other to determine the first qualifier for the Final and the two first-game losers facing each other to stay in the tournament.

Which game Team GB are involved in will depend on their result against Canada and then how Germany gets on against the Czech Republic, as Germany’s second game will take place at 7 p.m. on the Saturday.  The tournament organizers will no doubt be predicting a Germany-Canada 7 p.m. showdown and for Great Britain and the Czechs to meet at 2 p.m., but we shall see.

There will be a semi-final on the Sunday afternoon followed by the Final on the Monday evening. Depending on the precise travel arrangements, it looks like fans could get across during the day on the 20th and then depart again on the 25th after a great extended weekend of baseball.

Start making plans

It promises to be an exciting event, following hot on the heels of Team GB’s involvement in the 2012 European Championships in the Netherlands in early September. With the official details now published, manager Sam Dempster, Team GB General Manager Jason Greenberg, the rest of the team, and us fans, can start putting preparations in place for what will be a super September for the Senior Men’s National team.

Great Britain Baseball Senior Team tryout details announced

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Recruitment plans for the Great Britain Baseball Senior National Team have been revealed today ahead of an exciting year of international baseball events in 2012.

Tryout events will be staged in London, New York, San Diego and Toronto to help shape the rosters competing at the 2012 European Baseball Championships in September and the World Baseball Classic qualifying events at the end of the year.

In recent years, the Great Britain national team effort has aimed to bring together young talent in the UK with players who have experience playing around the world.

This approach has seen Team GB claiming a silver medal at the 2007 European Championships and competing against leading international teams such as Cuba and Japan in the 2009 Baseball World Cup.

The latest recruitment drive will begin in San Diego on 8 January 2012 and the full details from the press release are copied below.

Team GB is recruiting for the World Baseball Classic

The Great Britain Baseball Senior National Team is recruiting talented ballplayers from all parts of the globe.

In late 2012, Team GB will compete at the European Championships in Holland and the World Baseball Classic qualifying rounds. The British Federation is assembling a competitive roster to help them win both competitions, and they are calling for all British ballplayers with high school, collegiate or professional experience – living in the UK or further afield – to contact the coaching staff.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent Great Britain at the most elite and prestigious level,” said Jason Greenberg, General Manager of Team GB. “Our players travel to fascinating places and compete against the world’s top talents, and the WBC and the Euros will provide unique exposure to MLB and international scouts.”

Team Captain Brad Marcelino added, “We have a good mixture of personalities that love to get after it and compete for every pitch. Our team has a history of winning and playing above outsiders’ expectations. We will be facing opponent rosters comprised of mostly MLB and ex-MLB players, and we are prepared to take GB to the next level in 2012. No competitive ball player will want to pass this up, as the experience of playing for your country is one you will never forget.”

ELIGIBILITY TO PLAY IN THE WBC

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association set the eligibility requirements for the World Baseball Classic. Each player on the GB roster must meet at least one of the following criteria:

1) Holds British citizenship and carries a valid passport
2) Is a permanent legal resident in the UK
3) Was born in the UK or British territories
4) Is a direct descendant of a British citizen
5) Has a parent who was born in the UK or British territories
6) Is eligible for British citizenship or to hold a UK passport

The full eligibility rules as stipulated by World Baseball Classic Inc. can be found online at:
http://web.worldbaseballclassic.com/about/rules.jsp#player_eligibility

ELIGIBILITY TO PLAY IN THE EUROS

In order to represent Great Britain in a European (CEB) competition, players must:

  • Hold British citizenship
  • Have a valid UK passport

2012 EVALUATIONS AND COMPETITIONS

GB Baseball is scheduling tryout events for potential recruits in England, the United States and Canada. The first event will take place at the University of San Diego on Sunday 8 January. Any player with high school, collegiate or professional experience who is eligible to represent Britain in the World Baseball Classic or in European competition is encouraged to attend.

GB Baseball West Coast Tryouts
Cunningham Stadium
University of San Diego
Sunday 8 January 2012
1pm – 6pm

Additional evaluation events will be held in the Toronto, New York and London areas in April or May 2012. Specific dates and venues will be announced shortly after the winter holidays. Visit www.gbbaseball.com to sign up for the Team GB newsletter.

REGISTER TO TRYOUT / CONTACT THE STAFF

If you are interested in representing Great Britain or attending an evaluation event please contact Brian Essery (GB Coach and Recruitment Director) and Jason Greenberg (General Manager) at recruitment@gbbaseball.com.

Pre-registration for the 2012 evaluation events is mandatory.

2012 promises to be an exciting year for the Great Britain Baseball Senior National Team.  If you meet the above criteria and want to give yourself a chance to be part of it, make sure to get in contact with Brian and Jason.

Great Britain chosen for World Baseball Classic qualifiers

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Team GBGreat Britain baseball received the exciting news on Wednesday that the senior national team has been invited to qualify for the 2013 World Baseball Classic.

The first two WBC tournaments, the premier international event endorsed by Major League Baseball, have been a big success.  Rumours were already circling during the last tournament in 2009 that the number of entrants for the next event would be increased from the previous sixteen. 

As expected, that expansion has come in the form of an additional qualification round and Great Britain are one of twelve new teams to have been invited to be part of it.

The qualification round will involve sixteen teams in all, the twelve newcomers and the four teams that failed to win a game in the 2009 WBC (Canada, Chinese Taipei, Panama and South Africa).  The teams will be split into four groups of four, with each qualifying group likely taking the structure of a double-elimination event. 

The qualification round will take place in the latter part of 2012 and further details (the venues and which teams will be grouped together) are expected to be announced at the end of this year.

You can read the article on MLB.com here, and the British Baseball Federation website has an interesting news article including quotes from MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Michael Weiner.

We’ll have more reaction to the news over the coming week.

Japan win the 2009 World Baseball Classic

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Japan retained their World Baseball Classic title in the early hours of this morning in a thrilling extra-inning 5-3 win over Korea. 

Such eagerly anticipated contests can often turn out to be a disappointment; the enormity of the occasion leading to a cagey affair in which neither team performs under the pressure.   The 2009 WBC final was an exception to this rule.  Continue reading →

World Baseball Classic 2009 Final – A Preview

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After thirty-eight exciting games, sixteen teams have been reduced to just two. They will compete in the early hours  of Tuesday morning British time (a 1.00 start with first pitch at around 01.30) in a game ‘thirty-nine’ that everyone can look forward to.

 

Japan and Korea have emerged as the finalists of the 2009 World Baseball Classic, bringing together the reigning WBC champions and the reigning Olympic champions.  Continue reading →

WBC: The games remain the same

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After a series of exciting games, we now know which four teams will be competing in the 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) semi-finals.  The two match-ups will be determined by the result of tonight’s game between Korea and Japan, with the winner facing the United States and the loser taking on Venezuela.

While it promises to be a good game, you’d be forgiven if your first reaction was: “haven’t Korea and Japan played against each other enough already?”.  It’s a flaw in the tournament set-up, one which I pointed out last August.  Continue reading →