the International Baseball Federation and Major League Baseball. The competition took place from March 3, 2006 to March 20, 2006, which marks a duration of 18 days. A unique approach to hosting in comparison to global governing bodies of sports such as FIFA, FIBA, and ICC, is that multiple countries can host at each stage in the competition. For this year, Japan, Puerto Rico, and the United States were granted hosting rights, although at different levels. There was no qualification required, and all teams were invited based on merit. The structure of the tournament required two rounds of round-robin groups and a knockout stage beginning in the semi-finals. The round-robin groups would have the top two teams from each pool to advance to the next round. Outside of determining the home and away team, the next round would not be dependent of the previous one. A total of 39 matches were played in front of over 737,000 people combined. No adjustments were made from the original baseball rules, although teams have to face each other less in comparison to regional competitions like the World Series in North America. Rosters Japan would announce their roster, consisting of twenty-eight competitors from the Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan and two competitors from Major League Baseball in North America. The two representatives from MLB would consist of pitcher Akinori Otsuka from the Texas Rangers and outfielder Ichiro Suzuki from the Seattle Mariners. As for Cuba, all thirty Cubans in their roster came from the Cuban National Series, the professional league only played in Cuba. This is primarily due to the Cuban government having restricted rules for outside work not related to Cuba. If violated, the Cuban government would ban the individuals who broke the rules of working outside the country. Due to these reasons, only 2 MLB representatives were competing in the final, even though tens of MLB players were in different rosters. Road to the championship Round one Japan was drawn into Group A of the first round, and was granted the right to host for this stage. The group featured the strongest teams in East Asia: China, Chinese Taipei, and South Korea. Japan was able to defeat China and Chinese Taipei with ease, outscoring 32 to 5 runs combined. However, Japan would suffer their first loss of the tournament to South Korea, with a slow slump from a 2–0 lead to lose