International Baseball Federation
 |
|
| Abbreviation | IBAF |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1938 |
| Type | International sport federation |
| Purpose | Sport governing body |
| Headquarters | Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Location | |
|
Region served
|
Worldwide |
|
Membership
|
124 National Federations |
|
Official language
|
English, Spanish |
|
President
|
Riccardo Fraccari |
|
Parent organization
|
WBSC |
| Website | www.IBAF.org |
The International Baseball Federation (Spanish: Federación Internacional de Béisbol, French: Fédération international de baseball) is the former worldwide governing body recognized by the International Olympic Committee as overseeing, deciding and executing the policy of the sport of baseball. The IBAF has since become the international baseball "Division" of the World Baseball Softball Confederation, the officially recognized world governing body for baseball (and softball). One of its principal responsibilities under the WBSC is to organize, standardize and sanction international competitions among baseball's 124 national governing bodies through its various tournaments to determine a world champion and calculate world rankings for both men's and women's baseball. Prior to the establishment of the WBSC, which has since superseded its authority, the IBAF had been the lone entity that can assign the title of "world champion" to any baseball team delegated to represent a nation. Its offices are housed within the WBSC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland—the Olympic Capital.
The first-ever international baseball event was a series of exhibition games that took place during the 1904 Summer Olympic Games in St. Louis, United States. The exhibition proved so successful that it was given an encore at the 1912 Summer Olympic Games in , Sweden.
The two popular showings in St. Louis and Stockholm laid the groundwork for baseball's international surge in popularity, leading the sport to be placed onto the program as an exhibition sport at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games. This exhibition was extremely well received as 92,565 spectators filled the Olympic Stadium in Berlin to watch a game between two teams from the USA.
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Wikipedia