Baseball World Cup

The Baseball World Cup (BWC) was an international baseball tournament for national teams around the world, sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF). First held in 1938 as the Amateur World Series (AWS), it was, for most of its history, the highest level of international baseball competition in the world. Even after it was supplanted in this regard in by the modern World Baseball Classic (WBC), the Baseball World Cup was still considered by the IBAF to be a major world championship, along with the WBC and the Summer Olympic Games.^[1][2]

Early international baseball competition followed the strict Olympic rules on amateurism, prohibiting "professional" players from leagues such as Major League Baseball and its upper minor league teams. Because of this, the tournament was dominated by countries with political interest in circumventing amateur rules, such as Cuba, which dissolved its professional baseball league after the Cuban Revolution and given all its top full-time players phantom jobs. The tournament was eventually opened to professionals, with minor league players competing, though the desire to use top-level, major league players spurred the creation of the World Baseball Classic.

After the 2011 tournament, the Baseball World Cup was discontinued in favor of an expanded WBC with direct qualification; the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) – successor to the IBAF – now organizes the WBC and awards its winner the title of "World Champion."^[3] Additionally, the WBSC sanctions two new tournaments: the biennial 23U Baseball World Cup (begun as the 21U Baseball World Cup in 2014) and its quadrennial, flagship tournament, the WBSC Premier12 (starting in 2015), which involves the twelve best-ranked national teams in the world.^[4]

History

The Baseball World Cup was held 38 times; the final one was in 2011 in Panama. The first tournament, held in 1938, featured only two teams, but the last tournament included 22 participants; the previous two featured 16 and 18 teams (in 2007 and 2005, respectively). The World Cup was originally called the Amateur World Series, until the tournament in 1988.

The idea of a baseball competition for national teams was championed by International Baseball Federation (IBF) president Leslie Mann. After managing to include baseball as a demonstration sport at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Mann sought to organize an international tournament in 1937 between the national teams of the United States and Japan; this plan was derailed by the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War that same year.^[5] Instead, Mann wrote to John Moores, president of the British National Baseball Association (the precursor to the modern British Baseball Federation) to organize a tournament between the U.S. and Great Britain teams. The 1938 "John Moores Cup," as it was originally called, would be retroactively recognized as the first Amateur World Series.^[6]

Mann, along with Cuban sports administrator Jaime Mariné, helped turn the Amateur World Series into an annual event in 1939, this time held in Cuba.^[7][8] The first and second tournaments featured only two and three national teams, respectively, but seven participants were invited to the 1940 edition and the pool would only expand from there.

For much of its early existence, the competition was limited to the nations of Central America and the Caribbean; the United States withdrew early from the 1942 series, and would not return until 1969. The next edition, in 1970, saw two European national teams (Italy and the Netherlands) participate for the first time; in 1972, Japan became the first Asian country to participate in the global baseball tournament.

Until 1998 the competition was limited to strictly amateur and state-funded players. After 1998, professional minor league players competed, but Major League Baseball did not release its players to participate. In the months leading up to the high-profile first World Baseball Classic in 2006, many commentators heralded it as a "Baseball World Cup", realizing that a tournament of that description already existing for almost seventy years was not a real World Cup.

However, the 2006 World Baseball Classic was the first international baseball tournament to include active players from the top-level major leagues around the world — namely Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball — making it a closer equivalent to the world cups of other sports such as soccer, which commonly include players from the most prestigious professional leagues, than to the mostly-amateur Baseball World Cup.

Trophy

The champions of the first several Amateur World Series tournaments were presented the John Moores Trophy, named in honor of John Moores, a sponsor of the British Baseball Federation and future Everton F.C. executive.^[9] Like the Stanley Cup, it was a single trophy passed from winner to winner, with the names of the world champions engraved; however, only the winners of the 1938, 1939, and 1940 editions are engraved (England and Cuba); the United States withdrew from the AWS in 1942, and the trophy was apparently not awarded after that.^[10][11][a]

When Jaime Mariné succeeded Leslie Mann as president of the IBF during the 1940 Amateur World Series, he renamed the trophy the Copa Presidente Batista, after Fulgencio Batista, the president of Cuba.^[12] Mariné had participated in the Cuban Revolution of 1933 that brought Batista to power and had organized the dictator's Military Intelligence Service in 1935.^[13]

Tournament results

Medal table

Individual honors

Most Valuable Player

See also

• Women's Baseball World Cup
• Baseball awards#World
• Baseball at the Summer Olympics
• Intercontinental Cup
• International Amateur Baseball Tournament
• Global World Series
• WBSC Premier12
• World Baseball Classic

Notes

1. ^ The John Moores Trophy does reflect two tournaments in 1950 and 1956, won by the United States and Hawaii, respectively, but these were not Amateur World Series.^[11]

References

1. ^ "IBAF World Ranking Notes". International Baseball Federation. 13 January 2009. Archived from the original on 9 May 2019. Retrieved 23 June 2009.
2. ^ "Singapore 2005: 2012 Olympic Sport Vote". International Olympic Committee. 11 July 2005. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
3. ^ "Premier12 2019 Official Program - Page 6". WBSC. Archived 27 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
4. ^ The Congress approved a new format of International tournaments
5. ^ Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri (2012). Transpacific Field of Dreams: How Baseball Linked the United States and Japan in Peace and War. University of North Carolina Press. p. 171. ISBN 9780807882665.
6. ^ Leslie Mann (1940). Baseball Around the World. International Amateur Baseball Federation. pp. 19–26.
7. ^ "WBSC Headquarters: After decades of relocations, Switzerland is now the permanent home of international baseball". WBSC.org. World Baseball Softball Confederation.
8. ^ Mann, p. 26
9. ^ "Amateur World Series". WBSC.org. World Baseball Softball Confederation.
10. ^ Leslie Mann (1940). Baseball Around the World. International Amateur Baseball Federation.
11. ^ "Lot #52: THE JOHN MOORES TROPHY (1938)". SCP Auctions. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
12. ^ "THE HISTORY OF IBAF". Sporting Scribe. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
13. ^ Riccardo Schiroli (2019). The Game We Love. World Baseball Softball Confederation. p. 30.
14. ^ Bjarkman, Peter (2007). A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006. McFarland. pp. 195–210. ISBN 978-0786428298.
15. ^ "Nino Escalera". SABR. Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved 13 October 2025.
16. ^ "XXXIII Baseball World Cup - XXXIII Copa del Mundo de Béisbol". Archived 14 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
17. ^ "Baseball World Cup: Allstar Team". Mister-Baseball.com. 19 November 2007. Archived 29 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 29 July 2009.
18. ^ "2009 Baseball World Cup Final Report". Archived from the original on 29 May 2012. Retrieved 28 August 2009.
19. ^ "The individual awards and the All Star Team of the World Cup". IBAF. Retrieved 16 October 2011.