2004 South American Championship

From BR Bullpen

The 2004 South American Championship was the first South American Championship in 31 years as the event was revived after a long hiatus. Held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, it featured five teams. The host Flag of Argentina Argentina won their first outright South American title, having shared the title with Brazil in 1959. They were aided by the overlapping schedule with a Baseball World Cup qualifier, as Flag of Colombia Colombia and Flag of Venezuela Venezuela did not send teams to the South American Championship, focusing on the qualifier, and Flag of Brazil Brazil sent a youth team as their top older players went to the qualifier.

Argentina lost 6-4 to Ecuador but otherwise won the rest of their games, by a 39-7 margin. They beat Brazil 3-2 in the first round and 3-1 in the finale. Argentina's team was composed of Juan Pablo Angrisano, Rolando Arnedo, Luken Breque, Rodrigo Bruera, Ernesto Comoglio, Marcelo Costa, Mauricio Costa (or Mariano Boccardo; one source lists one player, another source the other), César Cremonini, Max De Biase, Martín Mondino, Lucas Montalbetti, Rodolfo Murayama, Javier Olmos, Facundo Rabaiotti, Mauricio Romero, Gabriel Sansó, Ramiro Schiavoni, Pablo Stortoni, Federico Tanco and Federico Toranzo. Olmos was named MVP, throwing a complete game, 11-whiff gem over Brazil in the finale. Mariano Spotorno managed Argentina and Hector Ramón and Raul Rodriguez Pereyra coached for them.

Brazil, managed by Ricardo Matsumaru, outscored opponents 42-13, easily beating everyone except Argentina despite their young team. 16-year-old Fábio Murakami was named the All-Star CF and 15-year-old Welisson Viana the All-Star RF. Some other players included Fábio Ishihara, Gabriel Asakura, Felipe Ishihara, Tetsuro Watanabe, Fábio Yoshikawa, Fábio Kobayashi, Renan Adachi, Rafael Mokiti Sasazima and Marcelo Oba.

Flag of Ecuador Ecuador finished third, with a 35-28 run differential, beating #1 Argentina but losing twice to Brazil (once in the round-robin, once in the semifinals) then beating Peru 10-4 in the Bronze Medal game. Byron Muñoz was the All-Star 1B, Miguel Véliz the All-Star 2B and Felipe Valle the All-Star 3B. Pedro Sanabria and SS Alfredo Molina also played well. Other players included P Alfredo Venegas, P Carlos Quirola, P Arturo Calle, P Damian Villanueva, P Ernesto Pólit, Marco Barros, Samuel Felman and Rafael Blum.

Flag of Peru Peru was outscored 9-42, beating only Chile (2-1)

Flag of Chile Chile went winless and was outscored 38-5. The team included Ian Sommerville and Alfredo Figueroa.