WBSC (World Baseball and Softball Confederation) published the Men’s Baseball World Ranking on Jan 20th includes 85 national team programmes. Here are several notable details we would like to share:
Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a hierarchy of professional baseball minor leagues in the Americas that compete at skill levels below Major League Baseball (MLB) and help prepare players to join major league teams. Those teams which are affiliated with MLB teams operate under the Commissioner of Baseball within the scope of organized baseball. Several leagues, known as independent baseball leagues, consist of teams with no affiliation to MLB teams.
The starting point for much of the action on the field is home plate (officially "home base"), which is a five-sided slab of whitened rubber, 17 inches (43 cm) square with two of the corners removed so that one edge is 17 inches long, two adjacent sides are 8.5 inches (22 cm) and the remaining two sides are 12 inches (30 cm) and set at an angle to make a point. The plate is set into the ground such that its surface is level with the surrounding ground. Adjacent to each of the two parallel 8.5-inch sides is a batter\'s box. The point of home plate where the two 12-inch sides meet at right angles is at one corner of a 90-foot (27.43 m) square. The other three corners of the square, in counterclockwise order from home plate, are called first, second, and third base. Three canvas or rubber bases 15 inches (38 cm) square and 3–5 inches (7.6–12.7 cm) in thickness made of soft material mark the three bases.
