Baseball World Cup

This page discusses the men's Baseball World Cup. For the women's competition, see Women's Baseball World Cup.

The Baseball World Cup was an international tournament in which national baseball teams compete for the position of top national team in the world. It is sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation, and was first held in 1938. It was last held in 2011.

History

There have been 39 Baseball World Cup tournaments to date; the first, held in 1938 (retroactively) featured only two teams while the latest event featured 22 nations. The last World Cup was held in 2011 in Panama and was won by the Dutch national team. The tournament generally received little publicity, and certainly did not begin to approach the popularity of soccer's World Cup. In the months leading up to the first World Baseball Classic, many commentators heralded that high-profile event as a "Baseball World Cup," perhaps not realizing that a tournament by that name has existed for almost seventy years. In late 2011, the IBAF announced that it was canceling the World Cup, leaving only the World Baseball Classic (held every four years instead of every two years) as the only international tournament.

For a list of past MVPs, see Baseball World Cup Most Valuable Player.

Tournament Results

Year	Host Nation(s)	Teams	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1938 I	Great Britain	2	Great Britain	United States	none
1939 II	Cuba	3	Cuba	Nicaragua	United States
1940 III	Cuba	7	Cuba	United States  Nicaragua	none
1941 IV	Cuba	9	Venezuela	Cuba	Mexico
1942 V	Cuba	5	Cuba	Dominican Republic	Venezuela
1943 VI	Cuba	4	Cuba	Mexico	Dominican Republic
1944 VII	Venezuela	8	Venezuela	Mexico	Cuba
1945 VIII	Venezuela	6	Venezuela	Colombia	Panama
1947 IX	Colombia	9	Colombia	Puerto Rico	Nicaragua
1948 X	Nicaragua	8	Dominican Republic	Puerto Rico	Colombia
1950 XI	Nicaragua	12	Cuba	Dominican Republic	Venezuela
1951 XII	Mexico	11	Puerto Rico	Venezuela	Cuba
1952 XIII	Cuba	13	Cuba	Dominican Republic	Puerto Rico
1953 XIV	Venezuela	13	Cuba	Venezuela	Nicaragua
1961 XV	Costa Rica	10	Cuba	Mexico	Venezuela
1965 XVI	Colombia	9	Colombia	Mexico	Puerto Rico
1969 XVII	Dominican Republic	11	Cuba	United States	Dominican Republic
1970 XVIII	Colombia	12	Cuba	United States	Puerto Rico
1971 XIX	Cuba	10	Cuba	Colombia	Nicaragua
1972 XX	Nicaragua	16	Cuba	United States	Nicaragua
1973 XXI	Cuba	8	Cuba	Puerto Rico	Venezuela
1973 XXII	Nicaragua	11	United States	Nicaragua	Puerto Rico
1974 XXIII	United States	9	United States	Nicaragua	Colombia
1976 XXIV	Colombia	11	Cuba	Puerto Rico	Japan
1978 XXV	Italy	11	Cuba	United States	South Korea
1980 XXVI	Japan	12	Cuba	South Korea	Japan
1982 XXVII	South Korea	10	South Korea	Japan	United States
1984 XXVIII	Cuba	13	Cuba	Chinese Taipei	United States
1986 XXIX	Netherlands	12	Cuba	South Korea	Chinese Taipei
1988 XXX	Italy	12	Cuba	United States	Chinese Taipei
1990 XXXI	Canada	12	Cuba	Nicaragua	South Korea
1994 XXXII	Nicaragua	16	Cuba	South Korea	Japan
1998 XXXIII	Italy	16	Cuba	South Korea	Nicaragua
2001 XXXIV	Taiwan	16	Cuba	United States	Chinese Taipei
2003 XXXV	Cuba	16	Cuba	Panama	Japan
2005 XXXVI	Netherlands	18	Cuba	South Korea	Panama
2007 XXXVII	Taiwan	16	United States	Cuba	Japan
2009 XXXVIII	Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden, Croatia, Spain, San Marino, Netherlands and Italy	22	United States	Cuba	Canada
2011 XXXIX	Panama	16	Netherlands	Cuba	Canada and  United States

Competing Nations

Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Canada	0	0	2
Chinese Taipei	0	1	3
Colombia	2	2	2
Cuba	25	4	2
Dominican Republic	1	3	2
United Kingdom	1	0	0
Japan	0	1	5
Mexico	0	4	1
Netherlands	1	0	0
Nicaragua	0	5	5
Panama	0	1	2
Puerto Rico	1	4	4
South Korea	1	5	2
United States	4	8	4
Venezuela	3	2	4