The Australian Baseball Federation announced a mix of current and former Major League Baseball players, exciting minor league prospects and proven amateur players on its 30-man roster for next month’s inaugural World Baseball Classic

Whilst the official roster doesn’t have to be finalised with MLB until March 2, five days before Australia plays its first game, the team announced today includes the players who are expected to participate in the first round against Dominican Republic, Italy and Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic

The Kansas City Royal’s first baseman Justin Huber, the Minnesota Twins’ infielder Glenn Williams, the Seattle Mariners’ pitcher Travis Blackley and the Boston Red Sox’s infielder Trent Durrington are on the Australian roster

Former Major League Baseball All-Star David Nilsson, who played on the Australian Silver Medal winning team at the 2004 Athens Olympics, is also on the roster
Nilsson, who made the 1999 USA-MLB All-Star team as a catcher, is likely to play either first base or be the designated hitter in the World Baseball Classic
He was a career .284 hitter with the Milwaukee Brewers during his eight years in the Major Leagues

Young prospects the Philadelphia Phillies’ Brad Harman, the Seattle Mariners’ Ryan Rowland-Smith and the Colorado Rockies’ Adam Bright also feature on the roster

Australia named 14 pitchers, including
1 - Damian Moss, who pitched for the Atlanta Braves, the San Francisco Giants, the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays
2 - John Stephens, who debuted with the Baltimore Orioles in 2002, and
3 - Adrian Burnside, who is a 2006 non-roster invitee to the Toronto Blue Jays Major League spring training camp

The three catchers on the roster are
1 - Major League non-roster invitee Michael Collins of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim’s
2 - minor league player Andrew Graham of the Detroit Tigers’ and
3 - recently signed Boston Red Sox’s minor leaguer Matthew Kent

Jon Deeble, the Australian manager, said there was a good mixture of experience and youth on the roster

Deeble said the addition of several amateurs would help the pitching staff given the strict restriction on how many pitches the professional players will be allowed to throw

"We have a number of amateurs who pitched well against Chinese Taipei and Chiba Lotte Mariners who we believe can help us” Deeble said
"On the whole we played pretty well against Chinese Taipei and we defeated a high quality, high class team in Chiba Lotte Mariners, the Japan national champions, in two games
What is exciting for us is that we now have players like (Glenn) Williams, (Trent) Durrington and (David) Nilsson to put into our line up
I think we are going to get better.
But, we’re not kidding ourselves, we still have a long way to go
The Dominicans will roll out an All-Star team, Venezuela is loaded with elite players and Italy has plenty of guys with major league experience on their roster
It's going to be tough
The biggest thing I want out of this for our country is credibility”

Australia will play Italy in its first game at The Ballpark at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando on March 7

Games on Television

Australians will have a unique opportunity to see their national team compete in the World Baseball Classic on ESPN

All three Australian games are scheduled to be broadcast on ESPN, with two of the three games being broadcast live on the following dates:-
1 - Wednesday 8th March - Australia vs Italy - LIVE on ESPN at 12.00pm (noon) and replayed at 7.00pm
2 - Friday 10th March - Australia vs Venezuela - LIVE on ESPN at 12.00pm (noon) and replayed at 7.00pm
3 - Saturday 11th March - Australia vs Dominican Republic - game shown at 3.00pm EST

The World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic, a 16-team tournament sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), will run from March 3 - 20

The inaugural event will feature many of the best players in the world competing for their home countries and territories for the first time ever

The 16 teams invited to participate have been divided into four pools of four teams for the first round of play

The four Round 1 pools will be played in a round robin format at venues in
----Japan (Tokyo Dome - Tokyo)
----Puerto Rico (Hiram Bithorn Stadium - San Juan) and
----The United States (Chase Field - Phoenix, Arizona; Scottsdale Stadium - Scottsdale, Arizona; The Ballpark at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex - Orlando, Florida)

Round 2 will feature two pools of four teams in a round robin format and is scheduled to be played in
----San Juan, Puerto Rico (Hiram Bithorn Stadium) and
----Anaheim, California (Angel Stadium)

The Semi-Finals and Final will be played at PETCO Park in San Diego, California on March 18 and 20, respectively

The World Baseball Classic will feature a bracket-style format with the 16 teams competing in four groups
----Pool A - China, Chinese Taipei, Japan and Korea
----Pool B - Canada, Mexico, South Africa and United States
----Pool C - Cuba, Netherlands, Panama and Puerto Rico
----Pool D - Australia, Dominican Republic, Italy and Venezuela

World Baseball Classic, Inc. is a company created at the direction of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) to operate the World Baseball Classic tournament
The tournament, which is sanctioned by the International BAseball Federation (IBAF), is supported by MLB, the MLBPA , Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), their respective players associations and other leagues and players from around the world