The World Baseball Classic is already started this month with some surprises.
In the first qualifier, Israel, Spain, France and South Africa were all trying to advance to the next round. Israel was the favorite going in as the WBC allowed Jewish players in minor league baseball (or former major leaguers) to play for team Israel. France and South Africa were eliminated first, and in an extra inning victory, Spain beat Israel, which makes the actual WBC a lot less messy as Jewish baseball players (Braun) would have had the option to play for Israel or the USA.
In the second qualifier, Canada beat out Germany, Great Britain, and the Czech Republic. This isn’t really a surprise. Canada didn’t win a game in the last tournament so they had to do play in this round.
To make a long story short, in the first two qualifiers, Israel, France, South Africa, Germany, Great Britain and the Czech Republic have all be eliminated.
Spain and Canada are moving on, with Spain being the first surprise of the team.
There will be two more qualifiers coming up to get the last two spots in the March tournament. Also, I know this is hard to imagine, but you can already purchase hats for all of the countries, even the eliminated ones.
