(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Field of participants announced for World Port Tournament
Nederlands
 ROTTERDAM (Neth.) -
The field of participants for the 17th edition of the international World Port Tournament Baseball has been announced.
The event takes place this year on July 12-21 at the Neptunus Familiestadion in Rotterdam (Netherlands).
Besides the hosting team Netherlands, the first team that was confirmed to participate was Japan in early December last year.
These two countries will be joined by teams coming from Curaçao, the USA and Chinese Taipei.
According to RTV Rijnmond, which announced the news on Tuesday (January 22), Chinese Taipei was the last team that confirmed it would come to Rotterdam.
In 2017, Chinese Taipei won the invitational tournament for the second time.
In the Final, they won 3-2 against Japan.
...An overview of the Neptunus Familiestadion...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Missing in the field of participants is representative team from Cuba.
Since the first World Port Tournament was organized in 1985, a Cuban team has participated in 15 of the 16 tournaments held since then.
There was no team from Cuba in Rotterdam in 1993.
Cuban champion Ciudad Habana participated in six of the first seven editions and won four of them.
A national team from Cuba has participated since 1999.
From 1999 on, Cuba finished in first or second place eight consecutive times, winning the event five times.
During the last edition in 2017, Cuba ended up in a disappointing fifth and last place.
In the history of the tournament, the field of participants comprised of five teams thirteen times.
In 1999, 2009 and 2013, only four teams participated.
Chinese Taipei has participated with a national team each edition since 1997 after having participated earlier in 1989.
Back then, it was the first national team team to participate in the event besides the Netherlands.
Curaçao will participate for the fifth consecutive time since 2011.
For Japan, it also will the fifth time that it sends a team to Rotterdam after having participated earlier in 2007, 2009, 2015 and 2017.
The last time that a team from the USA participated was in 2007.
Since 2007, only national or representative teams participate in the World Port Tournament.
From the first edition in 1985 through the seventh in 1997, the majority of the participants were club-teams.
More national teams joined the field of participants in 1999.
There was no World Port Tournament in 2005, because of the World Baseball Championship, which then was organized in the Netherlands.
(January 22)
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