July 3, 2019
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) today announced the game schedule for the XXIX WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup® 2019, to be staged from 30 August to 8 September in Gijang, Republic of Korea.
Baseball’s 29th U-18 World Championship will be contested over 50 games, with the world’s best youth baseball players and teams competing over nine days of competition at Gijang-Hyundai Dream Ballpark, the largest baseball-theme park in Korea.
“The teams now know the challenging path to be crowned baseball’s Under-18 World Champions, with the best young players from one nation competing against the best players of another nation,” said WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari. “Baseball is Korea’s biggest sport, and these elite youth games in Gijang promise to deliver a great atmosphere for the athletes as well as the fans watching in the ballpark and around the world.”
Games 1 and 2: The first two games of the youth baseball world championship will be a continental collision between the Americas and Asia, with world No. 10 Canada taking on wild card/No. 20 China, while No. 4 Chinese Taipei opens against No. 13 Panama. Chinese Taipei and Panama claimed the silver medal in their respective continental championships in 2018.
Game 3: World No. 1 Japan, the 2017 U-18 Baseball World Cup bronze medallists, will battle No. 26 Spain, the second-place finishers of the 2018 U-18 European Baseball Championship.
Game 4: Oceania’s top-ranked baseball nation, No. 7 Australia, and one of the biggest baseball nations from Central America, No. 15 Nicaragua, will open together.
Game 5: Four-time defending U-18 Baseball World Cup champions USA will begin their world title defense against Africa’s champions, No. 23 South Africa.
Game 6: World No. 8 Netherlands, the current European champions in the U-18 category, will meet world No. 3 Korea, the current Asian U-18 champions and 2017 U-18 Baseball World Cup second-place finishers.
Group A features No. 3 Korea, No. 7 Australia, No. 8 Netherlands, No. 10 Canada, No. 15 Nicaragua and No. 20 China.
Group B features world No. 1 Japan, No. 2 USA, No. 4 Chinese Taipei, No. 13 Panama, No. 23 South Africa and No. 26 Spain.
The top three teams from Group A will play the top three teams from Group B in the Super Round from 5-7 September, with the top two teams meeting in the Final match For the title of World Champion on Sunday, 8 September.
The official website of the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup has been launched at https://u18bwc.wbsc.org in six languages, including English, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Traditional Chinese.
The Korea Baseball Softball Association (KBSA) is the host of the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup, together with Gijang County and the nation’s Ministry of Strategy and Finance, and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
The U-18 Baseball World Cups, along with its continental qualifiers, have consistently featured players who have gone on to become some of the biggest names in the sport, such as Japan’s Yu Darvish and Shohei Ohtani; Korea’s Shin-soo Choo; Cuba’s Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman; and Clayton Kershaw, Bryce Harper, Francisco Lindor, Manny Machado and Buster Posey, who all played for USA Baseball’s U-18 National Team.
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