The U-23 Baseball World Cup is the youngest of Baseball World Cup events sanctioned by the WBSC. The fourth edition opens on Thursday, 13 October, in Taipei City. Take a look at 10 facts about this great tournament.
- Taipei City, the modern metropolis capital, will host the IV WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup opening game between Chinese Taipei and Colombia, Group B of the opening round, the Super Round and the medal games. Taichung City and Douliu City will jointly host the rest of Group A games and the placement round.
- Tianmu Stadium is located in the Tianmu Sports Park in Shilin District, Taipei City. The 10,500-capacity stadium opened on 15 August 1999 and is home to the Wei Chuan Dragons in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL)
- Taichung International Baseball Stadium is located in the Beitun District. The 20,000-capacity stadium is home to the CTBC Brothers in the CPBL. The stadium hosted several baseball events in the past like the Intercontinental Baseball Cup opener in November 2006, Baseball World Cup 2007, the Premier12 2015 and 2019, and the World Baseball Classic 2013. In 2023, the stadium will host Group A of the World Baseball Classic.
- Dou-Liou Baseball Stadium is the main venue of Yunlin County. It opened in September 2005 and has a capacity of 15,000 spectators. It served as a secondary stadium for CPBL teams. The Wei Chuan Dragons played there once a week during the 2022 season and has also co-hosted with Taichung Intercontinental Stadium on the games of the Intercontinental Cup and the Asia Winter Baseball League.
- Chinese Taipei will host the U-23 Baseball World Cup for the first time. The event will be played outside of the Americas for the first time since the last three editions were held in Mexico (2016 and 2021) and Colombia (2018).
- The WBSC launched a U-21 World Cup in 2014 - before deciding to expand the age bracket to U-23 - where Chinese Taipei, Japan and Korea topped the podium, respectively.
- Three different countries have won the U-23 world title - Japan in 2016, Mexico in 2018 and Venezuela in 2021. Panama, Japan and Mexico have each won a silver medal, while Australia, Venezuela and Colombia have claimed a bronze medal apiece.
- The tournament will follow the usual WBSC World Cup format. The 12 teams will be split into two groups of six teams, with the top three finishers of each group competing for the title in the Super Round. The first and second-place teams of the super round will play for the title.
- The WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup will have a total of 50 games, including the medal games.
- World No. 1 Japan is the top-ranked team in the U-23 Baseball World Cup. Eight of the top 10 programmes in the world are participating. South Africa is the lowest-ranked team at No. 26.
