World Baseball Classic comes to SF this March

Spring training isn't the only thing baseball fans can look forward to this season. The Baseball World Classic (read: World Cup for baseball) is taking the sports world by storm this March. What's even more exciting for the Bay Area is that the final games of the tournament will be played at AT&T Park in San Francisco!

San Francisco is coming off of a great year in sports - our baseball team the Giants won the 2012 World Series, and our football team the 49ers made it to the Super Bowl for the first time in 18 years. To keep the wins coming, SF is hosting the final matches in the Baseball World Classic - a major win for the city and hopefully a home field advantage for our USA team!

The Giants have 9 players in the WBC, the second-highest total in the majors after the Milwaukee Brewers, who have 14 representatives playing for Team USA and other teams. American baseball pros have traditionally come both from within and outside of the U.S., and events like this give non-American players a rare chance to represent their home country in a major sporting event.

Beloved Giants third basemen Pablo "Panda" Sandoval will play for his native Venezuela along with Marco Scutaro and Jose Mijares. Angel Pagan and Andres Torres will play for Puerto Rico, Sergio Romo will join Team Mexico, and Santiago Casilla joins Team Dominican Republic, leaving only Ryan Vogelsong and Jeremy Affeldt to represent the 2012 World Series Champions on the American team.

The WBC first began in response to the International Olympic Committee's decision to remove baseball as an Olympic sport in 2005. It's a 3-round tournament with 16 teams competing this year. Japan has won the last two titles (in 2006 and 2009), but this year the U.S. is the favorite to win.

The tournament will be held from March 2-19 in 8 stadiums around the world; the San Francisco games are March 17-19 with game times starting at 6:00 p.m. on the 17-18, and 5:00 p.m. on the night of the final game. Though tickets to see the final championship rounds in SF don't run cheap, there will be plenty of people watching at sports bars all over the city. Yelpers have a few good recommendations for the best sports bar in town, as does the San Francisco Chronicle.

It's springtime, it's baseball season, and San Francisco is hosting a spectacular showdown between the world's best ball players – all reasons why March is wonderful time of year to be on the Bay!