The World Baseball Classic has got game
What had heretofore simply been a schedule wrapped around a concept now also has participants - 394 of them with Major League affiliations

The baseball tournament, the first internationally to include Major League players, is scheduled for March 3-20 at sites in the United States, Japan and Puerto Rico

Late Tuesday night, 15 of the 16 teams competing filed their provisional rosters of up to 60 players each

There was one exception - Cuba
WBC officials seem to be convinced that a decision from the US Treasury Dept. about the application for Cuba to play is imminent and could reach a positive resolution
But as the owners began meeting here on Wednesday for two days, word hadn't been forward from Washington, DC
"Not yet" said Paul Archey, MLB's vice president of international business operations

Meanwhile, the 15 participants have already proven that the tournament will be exactly as billed - the best international baseball competition ever
Right now, the landmark field includes - Australia, Canada, China, the Dominican Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Chinese Taipei, the USA and Venezuela

And many of the teams boast MLB's best
------Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens for the USA
------Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez from the Dominican
------Ivan Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran for Puerto Rico
------Melvin Mora and Bobby Abreu for Venezuela
------Andruw Jones for the Netherlands
------Nomar Garciaparra and Vinny Castilla for Mexico
------Mike Piazza for the Italians
------Jason Bay and Justin Morneau for Canada, and
------Ichiro Suzuki for Japan
Notables missing are Hideki Matsui, who turned down Japan, and Gary Sheffield, who opted not to play for the USA

Aside from MLB, other international baseball organizations represented in the tournament are the China Baseball League, Chinese Professional Baseball League, Korea Baseball Organization, Mexican Baseball League and Nippon Professional Baseball

From this point on, no player can be added to any provisional roster before the start of the tournament

Final 30-man rosters for each team must be locked in by the start of the event on March 3 in the Tokyo Dome

First-round action will be played at four sites
Pool A - consisting of Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei and China, will meet at the Tokyo Dome, March 3-5, with the other three pools all on March 7-10
Pool B - featuring the U.S, Canada, Mexico and South Africa will play at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Scottsdale Stadium, Spring Training home of the San Francisco Giants
Pool C - includes Puerto Rico, Cuba, Panama and the Netherlands, and will play at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan
Pool D - featuring the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Australia and Italy will play at the spring home of the Atlanta Braves near Orlando

The top two teams from each pool will advance to the second round, which takes place March 12-16 back at Hiram Bithorn Stadium and March 12-17 at Angel Stadium, the home of the Los Angeles Angels

Again the top two teams in the four-team second-round brackets will each move on to the single-elimination semifinals and finals to be held at PETCO Park, the home of the San Diego Padres, on March 18-20