Venezuela national baseball team

The Venezuela national baseball team (Spanish: Selección de béisbol de Venezuela^[2] or Selección de Venezuela)^[3] is the national team of Venezuela.^[4] It is currently ranked sixth in the world by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, behind Chinese Taipei and ahead of the Netherlands.^[1]

Venezuela has competed in every edition of the World Baseball Classic since 2006, with its best result to date being a semifinal appearance in 2009. It won its first major international title in at the 1941 Amateur World Series, defeating a heavily-favored Cuba, and won two more world championships in the 1940s. It has also historically dominated baseball at the Bolivarian Games. However, Venezuela has never qualified for the Summer Olympics.

Venezuela debuted in international competition at the 1938 Central American and Caribbean Games in Panama City, finishing sixth. The country first participated in what was then the top level of international baseball competition, the Amateur World Series (later to be known as the Baseball World Cup), in 1940.

Venezuela won its first international baseball title the following year, defeating defending champions Cuba at the 1941 Amateur World Series in Havana. The championship team, with illustrious names from the country's amateur circuits like Héctor Benítez, Daniel "Chino" Canónico, and José Antonio Casanova, was hailed as "Los Heroes del '41" ("Heroes of '41"). The victory of the 1941 AWS is cited as the catalyst for baseball's exploding popularity in Venezuela,^{[5] [6]} Venezuelan President Isaías Medina Angarita declared October 22, the day of the championship game, a national holiday.

Venezuela competed in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, playing its opening games in Pool C, in Toronto, Ontario. The Venezuelans secured advancement out of Pool C with a pair of resounding wins over Italy. Along the way, Venezuela also lost a 15–6 slugfest against the United States, but won twice against the same team.^[7]

In the 2013 World Baseball Classic, Venezuela was eliminated by Puerto Rico, who went on to eliminate Italy, the United States and two-time defending champion Japan. Their placing as the third team in Pool C after defeating newcomers Spain was sufficient to secure direct qualification to the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

The team competed against Team Israel, Team Puerto Rico, Team Dominican Republic, and Team Nicaragua in the 2023 World Baseball Classic in March 11–15, 2023 in Miami, Florida.^[8]

The following is a list of professional baseball match results currently active in the latest version of the WBSC World Rankings, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.^[9]

Legend

  Win   Lose   Void or postponed   Fixture

In June 2005, Major League Baseball announced the formation of the World Baseball Classic, a sixteen nation international competition to be held in March 2006 for the first time. The team Venezuela sent to the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic included Venezuelan players from Major League Baseball. A player is eligible to participate on a WBC national team if:

• The player is a citizen of the nation the team represents.
• The player is qualified for citizenship or to hold a passport under the laws of a nation represented by a team, but has not been granted citizenship or been issued a passport, then the player may be made eligible by WBCI upon petition by the player or team.
• The player is a permanent legal resident of the nation or territory the team represents.
• The player was born in the nation or territory the team represents.
• The player has one parent who is, or if deceased was, a citizen of the nation the team represents.
• The player has one parent who was born in the nation or territory the team represents.^[10]

• 2006 World Baseball Classic
• 2009 World Baseball Classic
• 2013 World Baseball Classic

• Players from Venezuela in MLB

• Official website

• Venezuela national baseball team
• National baseball teams in South America

• CS1 Spanish-language sources (es)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from June 2014
• Commons category link is on Wikidata
• Official website not in Wikidata