The World Baseball Classic (WBC) is an international baseball tournament whose goal is to spread the popularity of the game of baseball all over the world. Sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation, the WBC is participated in by various national teams from all over the world. The first tournament was held from March 3-20, 2006 in various stadiums in Tokyo (Japan), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Orlando (Florida, USA), Phoenix (Arizona, USA), Anaheim (California, USA), and San Diego (California, USA).
During this inaugural edition of the World Baseball Classic, 16 countries adjudged as the best baseball-playing countries in the world were invited to send their national teams. These sixteen teams were divided into four pools, namely:
Pool A Japan, China, Korea, and Chinese Taipei
Pool B Canada, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States of America
Pool C Cuba, Netherlands, Panama, Puerto Rico
Pool D Australia, Dominican Republic, Italy, Venezuela
The tournament was a conducted in a round-robin style of competition, wherein each team played once against the other three teams in the pool. The top two pool leaders of A and B were...