With Team Cuba in town to defend its title, the 2004 XXI AAA World Junior Baseball Championship starts in Taipei today with twelve squads from around the world ready to compete in the 10-day competition.
The winner will reign the 18-and-under baseball world for the next two years.
This is the second international baseball tournament that Taiwan has hosted in as many months following the completion of the second World University Baseball Championship in Tainan during the first week of August.
The twelve teams will be divided into two groups of six: Group A, consisting of the US, Japan, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Germany and Taiwan; and Group B, consisting of Cuba, South Korea, Panama, Australia, South Africa and Italy.
The teams will play a round-robin preliminary round at the Tienmu Municipal Stadium and Hsinchuang's Taipei County Stadium for the first six days before the top four finishers from each group advance to play a cross-group, double-elimination final round next weekend in a final show of force.
In preparation for the biennial tournament that was launched in 1981 -- South Korea claimed the first title -- Team USA, Cuba and South Korea arrived in town last weekend to play the Taiwanese squad in a round-robin exhibition series. Even though Team Taiwan managed to beat all three opponents by final scores of 3-2, 14-1, and 9-5, against South Korea, the US and Cuba respectively, head coach Lee Du-hung (李杜宏) was not convinced that his troops had seen the ace pitcher from any of the three teams during the friendly round of action.
"I would give us a passing grade and that's all," Lee was quoted in the Chinese language press earlier this week, stressing the fact that his players should not underestimate the potentials of the opposing teams if they wish to return the championship trophy to Taiwan. "Team USA, especially, has a long history for heating up just in time in this tournament to finish strong," Lee said.
Standing in the way of Lee's quest to win in front of the home crowd are formidable teams from South Korea, Japan, Cuba and the US, four countries with rich baseball traditions that are second to none.
A number of Major League scouts will also be in the stands throughout the entire tournament as they gather to take a first-hand look at the world's top high-school players.
"We are extremely excited to see the club from Japan because it is the first time in a while that an All-Star team from the Koshiyen [Japan's premier high-school baseball league] is sent to participate in an international tournament," a talent scout, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, told the Taipei Times in a recent interview.
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