Baseball World Cup to be Held in 2006

Park Chan-ho (Texas Rangers) will be the starting pitcher and Kim Byung-hyun (Boston Red Sox) will be the closer. Choi Hee-seop (LA Dodgers) is to be at first base and Lee Seung-yeop (Chiba Lotte Marines) will be the designated hitter.

This dream is about to become a reality, because just like the World Cup in soccer, the Baseball World Cup, in which pro baseball players from around the world compete against each other, is about to kick-off.

Park Yong-oh, commissioner of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), held a three-way meeting on November 5 at the New Otani Tokyo Hotel with president of Major League Baseball (MLB) Bob DuPuy and commissioner of the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), Yasuchika Negoro, and agreed to hold the first Baseball World Cup in March 2006.

Following the decision, Korea, Japan and the United States agreed that the commissioners of the three nations will officially announce the foundation of the Baseball World Cup around February or March of 2005 after forming an administrative committee and discussing the programs.

For the first Baseball World Cup, 16 nations will form groups of four teams each, and eight nations, selected from the top two teams of each group, will fight for the championship cup in the United States.

Since “Dream Team I” appeared in the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games, “Dream Teams” comprised of professional players from all around have played in major games such as the Olympics and Asian Games. However, there has never been a chance for Korean players in Korea, the United States and Japan to wear the same uniform and play on one team.

If the national team members of each country all participate, the Dominican Republic and the U.S., which have star players such as Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez (Boston Red Sox) and Sammy Sosa (Chicago Cubs), will be the mostly likely candidates for the championship, and with the likes of Mariano Rivera (New York Yankees) of Panama and Ivan Rodriguez (Detroit Tigers) of Puerto Rico, the Central American teams are also expected to be strong.

Japan, which has Ichiro Suzuki (Seattle Mariners) and Hideki Matsui (New York Yankees), is another strong team.

The Baseball World Cup, which was originally scheduled for March 2005, was delayed when Korea and Japan put a brake on the plan due to revenue allotment matters, but the three parties reached an agreement at the three-way meeting when MLB guaranteed a certain amount of apportionment to Korea and Japan, and promised to respect Korea and Japan when making sponsor contracts.

Sang-Soo Kim ssoo@donga.com