TAIPEI CITY — The World Baseball Softball Confederation today announced the first-ever entry and roster of Team Europe in the Asia Winter Baseball (AWB) professional league, which is sanctioned by WBSC and set to open over the weekend in Taiwan.
Players to represent Team Europe in the Asia winter league come from eight countries — Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain — and six different European leagues, as well as Major League Baseball’s minor league affiliates in the United States.
World No. 11 Italy had the most players (11) selected from its country named to Team Europe. Netherlands, Europe’s top-ranked country and No. 5 at the world level, had the second-most (8) players making it on the continental all-star team, while No. 18 Germany had the third most players selected (4).
The selection of Europe’s roster was steered by team manager Gilberto Girali (Parma BC, Italian Baseball League) and his coaching staff.
The 2015 AWB short-season is being organised by the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) and will feature young players and potential future stars from multiple professional leagues.
Competing in the winter league are teams assembled by the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CTBA), CPBL, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Team Europe.
A total of 46 international games will be staged from the end of November for the 2015 AWB season.
-Opening Day
Europe will take on KBO on Saturday, which will be followed by host CPBL and NPB.
-Broadcast
Fox Sports will be the AWB’s exclusive host broadcast partner in Taiwan, producing all 46 contests in just under one month of competition.
AWB games will be streamed online at cpbltv.com.
-Sponsorship
Elite baseball equipment manufacturer Brett Sports will be the exclusive supplier of Team Europe in the AWB.
Earlier this year, WBSC established the first-ever Europe-branded team to compete in official international baseball competitions. Europe made its debut winning one of the two games last March at the Tokyo Dome against the top-ranked Samurai Japan National Team.
