The Copa America de Beisbol, hosted by the Venezuelan Baseball Federation, ended on Sunday. Puerto Rico won the tournament in front of Nicaragua, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles and host Venezuela. These five teams clinched the remaining five spots in the 2009 Baseball World Cup, which takes place from September 9 to 26 next year in seven European countries.
Group A Prague: Czech Republic, Australia, Chinese Taipei, Mexico
Group B Barcelona: Spain, Cuba, South Africa, Puerto Rico
Group C Stockholm: Sweden, Korea, Canada, Netherlands Antilles
Group D Moscow: Russia, Japan, France/Great Britain, Nicaragua
Group E Regensburg: Germany, USA, China, Venezuela
Italy and the Netherlands have a bye in round one and will host pools in the second round of the 2009 Baseball World Cup in Europe.
With the participation of Netherlands Antilles, there are now two teams from the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the tournament. The Baseball Federation in Curacao founded a national team this summer for the first time since 2002, played in the Haarlem Baseballweek in July and clinched a spot in the Baseball World Cup for the first time since 1988 in Italy, when the Antilleans were ranked eleventh out of twelve teams, finishing behind Italy and the Netherlands but in front of Spain.
The Copa America de Beisbol is part of the Pan-American-Games and lasted from September 25th to October 5th. Absent from the competition were the USA, Cuba and Canada, as all three were qualified for the Baseball World Cup due to their Olympics participation. The only other big name team from this region missing was the Dominican Republic due to unknown reasons.
Results Copa America Final Round:
Mexico – Venezuela 4-1
Puerto Rico – Panama 9-4
Brazil – Antilles Netherlands 1-2
Aruba – Nicaragua 2-15
Panama – Mexico 5-6
Venezuela – Puerto Rico 5-4
Nicaragua – Brazil 2-0
Antilles Netherlands – Nicaragua 10-5
Brazil – Panama 1-6
Aruba – Venezuela 0-14
Mexico – Nicaragua 1-2
Puerto Rico – Antilles Netherlands 14-4
Panama – Aruba 11-0
Venezuela – Brazil 5-0
Antilles Netherlands – Mexico 7-10
Nicaragua – Puerto Rico 1-4
Final Standings:
- Puerto Rico 7-1
- Nicaragua 6-2
- Mexico 6-2
- Antilles Netherlands 5-3
- Venezuela 5-3
- Panama 4-4
- Brazil 2-6
- Aruba 1-7
Colombia and Guatemala were winless in the preliminary round and didn’t advance into the final round.