WBSC Americas

The Pan American Baseball Confederation (Confederación Panamericana de Béisbol or COPABE), is the governing body of baseball within the Americas.

History

Talks of the need of a baseball confederation in the Americas sparked with the founding of the Confederation of European Baseball back in the 1950s, although it was not until 1984, during the World Cup played in Cuba, that 12 countries of the Americas finally voted in favor of a formation of a confederation.

The first ever Confederaciòn Panamericana de Béisbol (COPABE) executive meeting was held on March 1985, and 11 countries participated in its first ever Congress on March 15. The Congress saw the election of Oswaldo Matias Flores (Cuba) as the first president of the organization.

On October 5, 1987, the first Pan American Championship was played (Cuba won the tournament). The day after the final game of the tournament was held, the Congress elected Edwin Zerpa Pizzorno (Venezuela) as the next president of the organization.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s COPABE concentrated on developing tournaments at the youth level all over the Americas.

Members

Argentina Aruba Bahamas Bolivia Brazil British Virgin Islands Canada Chile Colombia

Costa Rica Cuba Curaçao Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Guyana Honduras Jamaica

Mexico Nicaragua Panama Peru Puerto Rico Trinidad and Tobago United States U.S. Virgin Islands Venezuela

Rankings

See also: WBSC World Rankings

Since the rankings were first released by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) until 2014, Cuba had maintained its position as the top national baseball team in the world, and by extension the top-ranked team in the Pan American Baseball Confederation. With the teams of United States, Cuba, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, COPABE is the most represented confederation in the world top ten.

Rankings as of 26 November 2014
COPABE Rank	IBAF Rank	Team	Points
1	2	United States	5453
2	5	Cuba	3813
3	6	Canada	2659
4	7	Venezuela	2642
5	8	Mexico	2637
6	11	Puerto Rico	1759
7	12	Dominican Republic	1559
8	15	Panama	1096
9	16	Brazil	1002
10	17	Colombia	905
11	18	Nicaragua	881
12	27	Argentina	257
13	37	Guatemala	130
14	48	Peru	72
15	54	Ecuador	36
16	63	Bolivia	13
17	64	Chile	10
18	65	Curaçao	7
19	70	Honduras	3
20	72	Aruba	0
20	72	Bahamas	0
20	72	British Virgin Islands	0
20	72	Costa Rica	0
20	72	El Salvador	0
20	72	Guyana	0
20	72	Haiti	0
20	72	Jamaica	0
20	72	Trinidad and Tobago	0
20	72	U.S. Virgin Islands	0

See also

• World Baseball Softball Confederation
• Baseball at the Central American and Caribbean Games
• Baseball at the Pan American Games
• Baseball at the 2010 South American Games
• 2008 America Cup (Baseball)

External links

• Official website