1983 Intercontinental Cup

The 1983 Intercontinental Cup was held from July 13 through July 25, 1983 in Brussels, Belgium. It was the second Intercontinental Cup held in Europe and the first global baseball tournament held in Belgium. Belgium was the only country in the history of the Cup to host the event without playing in it. 60,000 fans showed up for the tourney.

Cuba took the title with a 8-2 record, reclaiming the crown they had lost to the USA in 1981. Jose Pineda made his debut as national team skipper. They were led by All-Star OF/MVP Víctor Mesa, who led the event in average (.567), runs (13), hits (17) and homers (5, tied for the lead). All-Star OF Lourdes Gourriel Sr. (.429) led the event with 4 doubles, Antonio Pacheco (.378) led with 2 triples and All-Star 1B Antonio Muñoz (.386) led with 14 RBI. All-Star SS Pedro Jova added a .415 average and Pedro Medina hit .455. Rogelio García (3-1, 3.32) had the staff's best record while Julio Romero (2-0, 0.50) led in ERA.

United States won the Silver Medal at 7-3 after their Gold the prior time around; all 3 losses came to Cuba. Bill Swift (0.00) led the tournament in ERA while All-Star OF Eric Fox tied for the home run lead with 5. Other prominent names in retrospect include Mark McGwire, B.J. Surhoff, Jeff Ballard, Tim Belcher, John Marzano and Keith Miller. They were managed by Bob Bennett.

Chinese Taipei was 5-5 and won Bronze. All-Star 3B Fu-Lien Wu led the tournament with 4 steals. Shih-Chiang Chao was named the All-Star DH and Jung-Kwei Hsu the All-Star C, giving them the second-most All-Stars after Cuba. I-Tseng Lin and Ping-Yang Huang would go on to be stars when Taiwan started professional baseball in the 1990s.

Netherlands went 3-3 in the first round but 0-3 in the second to finish 4th, missing a Medal. Charles Urbanus Jr. was named the All-Star 2B. Other notable names include Eric de Vries, Haitze de Vries, Marcel Joost, Paul Smit, Eddy Tromp and Bart Volkerijk.

South Korea finished 5th at 3-3. They had the lone All-Star from a team that missed the second round, P Dong-yol Sun (a tourney-high 31 IP). Min-ho Kim and Yong-soo Kim were also on the squad.