Four Former Rays to Appear in 2013 World Baseball Classic - Beckley, Bluefield & Lewisburg News, Weather, Sports

Four Former Rays to Appear in 2013 World Baseball Classic

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The names of four former Princeton Rays appeared among the rosters released on January 17 for the 2013 World Baseball Classic, which will be played from March 2-19, 2013.

All four are infielders: Nestor Perez (1998 P-Ray), who will be playing for Brazil; Yurendell DeCaster (1999), who will be playing for the Netherlands, Edgar Gonzalez (2000), who will be playing for Mexico; and Leonardo Reginatto (2010), who will be playing for Brazil.

One other former P-Ray, 2012 catcher Chad Nacapoy, played for the Philippines in a World Baseball Classic qualifying tournament this past November but they were eliminated before March's main sixteen-team event.

Decaster and Gonzalez also played in the last world Baseball Classic in 2009.

The World Baseball Classic is an international baseball tournament sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and created by Major League Baseball (MLB), the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), and other professional baseball leagues and their players associations around the world. It is the main tournament sanctioned by the IBAF, which names its winner the "World Champion." It previously coexisted with Olympic Baseball (until 2008) and the Baseball World Cup (until 2011) as IBAF-sanctioned tournaments, but the other two have been discontinued. The 2009 Classic, the second edition of the event, was won by Japan for the second tournament in a row.

Many of the biggest stars currently in Major League Baseball can be found on rosters representing the final sixteen countries competing: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Spain, United States, and Venezuela.

The final four teams remaining will compete in semi-final games on March 17-18 to be followed by a final game on March 19, 2013 at AT&T Park in San Francisco to determine who will be crowned as 2013 World Baseball Classic Champions.

All games are to be televised by MLB Network and persons needing more information can access it on the web at www.worldbaseballclassic.com.