Yesterday, Bud Selig announced the field and the venues for the 2009 Baseball Classic. The field wasn't a mystery. It was known a while ago that the field of 16 would not be changing this year, but next time in 2012 there could be an expanded field featuring teams like Israel for example. Anyway, there was a lot of debate about where the venues would be this year, and I feel they did a good job spreading them out, even though I would have liked to see one on the East Coast of the United States.
Pool A will be playing in Tokyo and the teams are China, Chinese Taipei, Japan and Korea.
Pool B will be playing in Mexico City and the teams are Australia, Cuba, Mexico, and South Africa
Pool C will be playing in Toronto and the teams are Canada, Italy, United States, and Venezuela
Pool D will be playing in Puerto Rico and the teams are Dominican Republic, Netherlands, Panama, and Puerto Rico
The venues for the rounds after the first are not official yet, but the speculation says that San Diego will get the second round and Dodger Stadium will get Semifinals and the Finals. The official write up can be found here.
In other Baseball News:
Possibility of Smoltz starting on the DL.
Miguel Cabrera could be the next 153.6 million dollar man.
Javy Lopez retired.
John Patterson to sign with Rangers. (Knew it would be fast)
The Baltimore Sun said yesterday that there was a possibility of Steve Traschel being the Opening Day starter, luckily Gutherie beat him out for the spot. (Guts really does deserve it)
