1989 Intercontinental Cup

The 1989 Intercontinental Cup was the 9th Intercontinental Cup. It was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico from August 16 through August 27, 1989.

Cuba cruised to victory at 8-0. They were managed by Jorge Fuentes and included star performances by Orestes Kindelan (a tourney-best 10 runs,5 homers and 11 RBI) and Lazaro Valle (who threw a 8-inning, 13-K perfect game against South Korea). Lourdes Gourriel Sr. (.435) was named MVP. Valle, 3B Omar Linares, 2B Antonio Pacheco, DH Kindelan and OF Gourriel all made the All-Star team.

Japan was 5-3, but lost 8-2 to Cuba in the finale to finish with a Silver Medal. Tsuyoshi Yoda had the best record at 2-0. Notable players included Atsuya Furuta, Hideo Nomo and Tetsuya Shiozaki. OF Tatsunori Matsui was their lone All-Star, leading in average (.500) and hits (13).

Puerto Rico won the Bronze Medal, going 5-3 and topping South Koreas 3-2 in the Bronze Medal game. They had four All-Stars in OF Angel Morales, 1B Efraín García, C Jose Lorenzana and P Wilfredo Velez.

South Korea was 3-5 and finished 4th. Dong-hee Park made the All-Star team as one of the three pitchers. They had several other future notables such as Joon-hyuk Yang, Dae-sung Koo, Min-tae Chung, Jong-beom Lee, Kyung-hyun An and Dong-soo Kim.

Chinese Taipei went 3-3 and missed out on the second round. Players included Kuo-Chong Lo, Chien-Fu Kuo Lee, Chung-Yi Huang, Wen-Chung Chang, Cheng-Hsien Chang and Wei-Cheng Chen. Lo was the sole All-Star from a team that missed round two.

Italy tied for last at 1-5, beating Puerto Rico 13-12 in their lone victory. Their roster included Ruggero Bagialemani, Roberto Bianchi, Roberto Cabalisti, Paolo Ceccaroli, Gianmario Costa, Alberto D'Auria and Marco Mazzieri.

United States tied for last at 1-5, beating Italy (by 2 runs) for one of their worst international tourneys ever. The team inclued Jeromy Burnitz, Brent Gates, Dave Fleming, Chris Haney, Matt Mieske (the tourney leader with 4 doubles) and Dan Wilson as well as several other major leaguers, hardly a bad group of players.