The 2011 World Port Tournament will start on Thursday at the Family Stadium in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The bi-annual International Baseball Tournament, which runs through July 3, features teams from the Netherlands, Cuba, Germany, Taiwan and Curacao. Debutant Germany will open the 13th edition at 2pm CET against Taiwan. In the evening at 7pm CET host Netherlands faces Curacao. Eight-time champion Cuba, which also has won the last four straight events, will enter the competition on Friday afternoon.
Cuba and the Dutch team are the favorites to win the title at the 2011 WPT. The record world champion hasn’t the big stars like Alfredo Despaigne or Yulieski Gourriel on the roster, but still features a selection of interesting players including Dalier Hinojosa, who has hurled a pair of mercy-rule perfect games in the past two years. The Netherlands entirely relies on players from the Dutch Hoofdklasse, especially from DOOR Neptunus (10 players) and L&D Amsterdam (7). Leon Boyd arrived in Rotterdam a few weeks ago right in time for the European Cup and will bolster the pitching staff alongside Diegomar Markwell, Rob Cordemans and Kevin Heijstek.
The other three teams hope for the surprise. For the first time Germany received an invite and will use the tournament to test some new players in preparation of the 2011 IBAF Baseball World Cup in Panama later this year. All 24 players are from the Baseball-Bundesliga, 16 from the northern division. Alongside veterans Andre Hughes, Tim Henkenjohann, Michael Franke and Simon Guehring, prospects Daniel Harms, Jan Jacob or Florian Goetze among others will make their international debut. While we as usual don’t know much about the squad from Taiwan, Curacao has some well-known players on board like Gregory Gustina, Duko Jansen, Ulrich Snijder, Randolph Kirindongo or Johnny Gregorius Jr.
All in all should lead to an interesting 2011 World Port Tournament. Two games are scheduled each day from June 23 to July 2. The finals with the two best teams will be played on Sunday, July 3. Tickets are available online at the official website www.worldporttournament.nl. You can also follow the tournament via twitter. Mister-Baseball.com will have short recaps of all the games.