After weeks of anticipation and preparation, the 37th edition of the World Cup of Baseball starts today. The tournament begins with a short opening ceremony, followed by the first game between host Chinese Taipei and Italy at 18:00 local time. The other 14 participants go into action on Wednesday.
The favourite to win it all is Cuba, who won the last nine World Championships in a row and 25 overall. They have their best team aboard and are confident to defend the title. The teams of the United States, Australia, Panama, Venezuela and Korea are also in the mix for the top three. The European countries the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Germany are only the underdogs at the World Cup. It will be interesting in the upcoming weeks.
You can follow the action live and for free on the Internet. The French broadcaster stadeo.tv will cover 41 games on their website. Live scoring should be available at the official website of the International Baseball Federation. Mister-Baseball will report from the event with recaps and notes around the games.
Complete World Cup of Baseball schedule (.pdf-file)