WBSC presents the U-18 Baseball World Cup in Thunder Bay

WBSC presents the U-18 Baseball World Cup in Thunder Bay
01/09/2017

THUNDER BAY (Ontario), Canada-The WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup was presented during a press conference

THUNDER BAY (Ontario), Canada-The future of the kids is the main concern of the managers. Andrew Stankiewicz (USA) and Eric De Bruin (The Netherlands) made it very clear: they will work on strict pitch counts and any other coach in charge of the 12 teams participating in the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup agreed in an unusual collective answer to a question asked during the presentation of the tournament.

Expectations of the teams of course differ. Group B teams sounded overall more cautious. Even 3 time defending champions USA and Japan, the number one Nation in WBSC ranking (and a silver medal in both 2013 and 2015 edition).
“We have a good team and we are here to compete” said Stankiewicz.
“We are happy the way we played back in Japan” said Mamoru Koeda through an interpreter “Hopefully we can show what we are capable of”.
De Bruin said he wants The Netherlands to simply “go out and play hard every day” and the comments of Cuba and South Africa ran in the same direction. Mexico could not attend the press conference.

A crowded press conference in Thunder Bay (Christian J Stewart-WBSC)

In group A apparently every team has hopes of reaching the super round.
Greg Hamilton said Canada is “proud of being the host nation” and didn’t mention any limit for his team.
Chou Tsung Chih of Chinese Taipei and Steven Fish of Australia agreed on the fact they wish “to repeat” what happened in 2010 here, when they made it to the gold medal game.
Lee Sung Ryul of Korea (also speaking through and interpreter) was as clear as possible in stating that his team aims to be amongst “the top 4”.
Also Nicaragua and Italy are hopeful to reach the super round. “We understand this tournament is going to be very difficult” said Nicaragua’s Jorge Avellan “But we came here ready and will do out best to make it to the super round”.
John Cortese of Italy said he has a “very young team” but also that he is confident they can play good baseball: “If you play good baseball, you never know. We could end up in the top 3”.

The head of the local organizing commitee Warren Philp wanted to highlight the fact that international baseball is a tough game and surprises may come. He proudly remembered the path his organizing commitee followed from 2003 and that led them to the organization of the 2010 event: “I was in Japan in 2015 and I know how much the tournament has grown. I realize there’s a lot of interest and on behalf of our volunteers I want to let you know we are confident it will be a succesful event”.

Warren Philp with the U-18 Baseball World Cup (Christian J Stewart/WBSC)

Day 1 of the tournament has the following program (all times local, – 6 hours from Central Europe Time):

9.30 am Japan-Mexico (Port Arthur) and Italy-Nicaragua (Central Field)
1 pm Australia-Korea (Port Arthur) and Netherlands-USA (Central Field)
5.15 pm Opening Ceremony (Port Arthur)
6.30 pm Chinese Taipei-Canada (Port Arthur)
7 pm South Africa-Cuba (Central)