History of baseball outside the United States
On March 20, Japan defeated Cuba 10–6 in the final held at Petco Park in San Diego to win the 2006 World Baseball Classic.
In the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Japan defeated South Korea 5–3 in 10 innings in the final at Dodger Stadium on March 23, 2009, in Los Angeles, to win their second consecutive championship.
Baseball also made an appearance at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, American players facing a French team (the Ranelagh Club) in an exhibition game.
With the strong Cuban team absent due to the Soviet-led boycott the field consisted of: United States, Japan, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Canada, Taiwan, Italy and Nicaragua.
MLB officials have pointed out that a two-week break in mid-season would necessitate a major reshuffling of its schedule: either the season would have to begin in March and/or the World Series would run into November.
As a result, the Americans and other nations where professional baseball is developed relied on collegiate players, while Cubans used their most experienced veterans, who technically were considered amateurs, as while they nominally held other jobs, they in fact trained full-time.
Korea Professional Baseball (KBO League) was founded in 1982 with six teams: MBC Chungyong, Lotte Giants, Samsung Lions, OB Bears, Haitai Tigers, Sammi Superstars.
During its budding stage, however, most of the stronger baseball teams were from northern Taiwan, especially Taipei, which was the birthplace of the sport and home to several prominent schools and companies.
In 2002, slugger Chen Chin-feng signed by Los Angeles Dodgers making MLB debut which made him the first Taiwanese to play in the U.S.'s Major League Baseball.
The most famous Taiwan-born player is the former New York Yankees' ace starter Wang Chien-ming whose 44 wins from the beginning of the 2006 season to May 26, 2008, beat any major league pitcher during that stretch.
Amateur youth teams in the country include the Thimphu Red Pandas, the Paro Ravens, the Wangdue Cranes, the Phuentsholing Crocodiles, and the Gelephu Tuskers.
[36][37][35] Baseball was played in Manipur as early as World War II when the US Army Air Force flew supplies to China over the Himalayas, known as "Flying the Hump", and the locals learned the game from the troops stationed there.
Since the 1960s, it has struggled to keep up with Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese teams, though it has remained high in the World Baseball Classic rankings compared to other Asian countries.
[42] The six league teams were the Tel Aviv Lightning, Netanya Tigers, Bet Shemesh Blue Sox, Petach Tikva Pioneers, Modi'in Miracle, and Ra'anana Express.
[47][48][49] While Saudi Arabia has seen some minor success in the many entries they have sent to the Little League World Series their participants are almost exclusively American expatriates and children of the multi-national oil companies like Aramco.
[54] Since its inception in the early 20th century, baseball has slowly cruised up through German society and a major landmark was staged with the creation of Bundesliga, Germany's highest professional league, for this sport in 1982.
The Italian National Team has had great success in international competition, having won the European Baseball Championship 10 times including most recently as late in 2012.
Professor Bob Barney researched the oldest verified baseball game played in Canada, based on a letter from Adam Ford to the editor of Sporting Life, published on May 5, 1886.
Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run on Canadian soil on September 5, 1914, at the former ballpark at Hanlans Point on Centre Island in Toronto.
In Ken Burns' documentary film Baseball, the narrator quotes Sam Maltin, a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier: "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind."
In 1957, former Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Glen Gorbous, a native of Drumheller, Alberta set the current world record for longest throw of a baseball at 445 feet 10 inches (135.89 m) in Omaha, Nebraska.
In 1959, the year Fidel Castro seized power in the Cuban Revolution, the Havana Sugar Kings won the International League championship, and captured the Little World Series by defeating the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association.
Havana's Industriales, founded by workers representatives from the cities industries and intended as heir to Almandares club, dominated the league, winning four of the first five championships.
Industriales, with most of the top-tier ballplayers from Havana, has remained the strongest team, but Santiago de Cuba, Villa Clara and Pinar del Río have also experienced considerable success.
To counter this, San Pedro signed the three top players from the Negro league powerhouse Pittsburgh Crawfords-pitcher Satchel Paige, catcher Josh Gibson and centre fielder Cool Papa Bell—but, upon arriving in the country, they were detained by Trujillo and forced to suit up for the Dragones.
The Dragones defeated Santiago and San Pedro to win the 1937 championship, but the vast amounts of money used to finance the season bankrupted the other owners, and ended professional baseball in the Dominican Republic for ten years.
The first wave of Dominican ballplayers to play professionally in the Major Leagues, including Ozzie Virgil, Sr., the Alou brothers—Felipe, Matty and Jesus—and Hall-of-Fame pitcher Juan Marichal emerged from Trujillo's amateur teams.
A Puerto Rican that was born in Brooklyn, Amos Iglesias Van-Pelt, started practicing a group of men, some of them Cuban students who already knew the game from back home.
Popularity waned during World War II, as the Brazilian government vetted public demonstrations of the culture of Axis powers countries, and the Japanese colony was still the biggest baseball market.
Afterwards, a São Paulo confederation was founded in 1946, and in the 1960s and 1970s Japanese companies with Brazilian operations funded visits of the baseball national teams of traditional countries such as the United States, Japan and Panama.
