The Week in International Baseball (22-31 December)

We wrapped up the year with news from around the globe.

MLB announced major plans to invest in development centres in China (link).

We premiered a new series of graphics: The ‘Top Stiffs’ who missed a vote because of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s arbitrary decision to limit Hall ballots to 10 (tweet), offering a few preliminary conclusions. We released a second graphic a few days later (tweet) and updated it on the 28th (tweet).

Hong Kong won the sixth Hong Kong International Baseball Open (link).

The Nassau Guardian profiled Todd Isaacs‘ Don’t Blink Home Run Derby, coming up on January 6 (link).

Riccardo Fraccari addressed the baseball world in an end-of-year letter (link).

Our colleagues @w0rldbaseball released an update on the Latin American Series, similar to the Caribbean Series, but with teams from less-developed countries (tweet).

Six Czechs will play baseball in the U.S. in 2018: Martin Cervenka (Orioles), Marek Chlup and Vojtěch Menšík (NC State), Martin Mužík and Martin Červinka (Wake Tech College), and Jan Nebenfuhr (Arizona Western College) (tweet).

The Strike Out France had an interesting conversation with the head coach of German Bundesliga’s Paderborn about their investment in youth baseball over importing players (link).

The Dutch Baseball Hangout broke the news that the Rays had signed Aruban Nigel Calmes (link).

We broke the news on Tony DeMarco’s Hall of Fame ballot (tweet) and finished the year with one final update to our ‘Top Stiffs’:

With @baseballhof votes pouring in thanks to the tireless team of @NotMrTibbs, we have a big update of our 'Top Stiffs': those players who would have made a ballot of more than 10 names allowed. pic.twitter.com/UqbkCUxK8g

— Extra Innings UK (@ExtraInningsUK) December 31, 2017

And our last tweet of the year was one noting the gains made in baseball in Argentina:

Translation: 2017 will be the marker of before and after in the history of baseball in Argentina. We began the path to professionalize the discipline in our nation. Thanks for all the support. Let's go together in 2018-all for the growth of Argentine baseball. Happy New Year! https://t.co/DCA172Lepl

— Extra Innings UK (@ExtraInningsUK) December 31, 2017

Previous articles in this series include:
15-21 December (link)
8-14 December (link)
1-7 December (link)
15-30 November (link)
1-14 November (link)
15-31 October (link)
1-14 October (link)
Month of September (link)
27 August-2 September (link)
20-26 August (link)