(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Netherlands opens World Baseball Classic 2017 in South Korea
Nederlands
 NEW YORK, New York (USA) -
The Netherlands Kingdom Team will open the fourth World Baseball Classic in March next year with a preliminary round in South Korean capital Seoul.
On Tuesday (August 2), the governing World Baseball Classic, Inc. announced the venues and pool alignments to be played in Asia.
Japan again will be a host country, as it also has done in the previous three edtions of the World Baseball Classic in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
Time time, Japan will host a first round (Pool A) and a second round (Pool E) from March 7 through 16.
In both pools, the games will be played at the Tokyo Dome, which also was the playing site in the earlier Classics.
In 2013, games also were played at the Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome.
In the first round, Japan will be joined by Cuba, China and Australia.
Another first round will be played in Seoul (South Korea), which will make its debut as host during a Classic.
Seoul will be the site of Pool B to be played March 7-11 in the newly opened Gocheok Sky Dome.
The Netherlands Kingdom Team will play in this pool together with host South Korea and Chinese Taipei.
The fourth team in this pool will be the winner of the WBC Qualifier that will be held next month in Brooklyn, New York (USA).
Participating in that event are Brazil, Great Britain, Israel and Pakistan.
Earlier this year, three other Qualifying Tournaments were played in Australia, Panama and Mexico.
The two best teams of the four first rounds will advance to the second round.
Additional venues, pool alignments and game dates for the 2017 Classic will be announced in following weeks.
The 2017 World Baseball Classic again will serve as the official National Team World Championship.
The Netherlands also participated in the previous three World Baseball Classics.
In 2013, the Orange squad, led by Manager Hensley Meulens, reached the semi-finals, which were played in San Francisco (USA).
The Dominican Republic went on the win the event and with that, also became world champion.
(August 2)
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