Tickets to the second round through the final of the World Baseball Classic will go on sale Monday.
The tournament's second round is set for March 14-19 and will feature the top two teams from each pool of the first round in a double-elimination format.
Ticket strips for the second round, the semifinals and the final of the 2009 Classic will be made available to the public online at worldbaseballclassic.com, powered by MLB.com, the official site of Major League Baseball, as well as online and by phone in the local markets. Tickets for each venue will go on sale at 10 a.m. local time, meaning Miami tickets will go on sale at 10 ET, and Los Angeles and San Diego tickets at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.
The strips for the individual pools of the second round will consist of six tickets, one to each of the six games played in one of the two second-round venues. Ticket strips for the semifinals and final games will consist of three tickets, one to each of the games played in Dodger Stadium.
Single-game ticket sales for the entire tournament will be announced at a later date.
The 16-team international field in the World Baseball Classic is the same as 2006. An expansion to 24 teams is under consideration for 2013.
First-round play, contested entirely outside the U.S., will be broken into four pools of four teams each. The double-elimination format is a departure from round robin, which was in play in the 2006 Classic.
China, Chinese Taipei, Japan and Korea -- Pool A -- begin play March 5 in the Tokyo Dome. In Pool B, it will be Australia, Cuba, Mexico and South Africa, playing from March 8-12 in Mexico City at Foro Sol Stadium.
Canada, Italy, the U. S. and Venezuela will play March 8-12 at Rogers Centre in Toronto in Pool C. Pool D will feature the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, Panama and Puerto Rico from March 7-11 in Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The top two finishers from Pool A and Pool B will play at PETCO Park in San Diego, and the teams advancing out of Pool C and Pool D will compete at Dolphin Stadium in Miami.
PETCO Park was the site of the 2006 Classic final, when Japan edged Cuba, 10-6, to capture the inaugural title as Daisuke Matsuzaka was named the tournament's most valuable player. Dolphin Stadium will be hosting World Baseball Classic games for the first time.
The semifinals and final will be played from March 21-23 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Competition will shift to single elimination for both the semifinals and final with teams from the two second-round pools crossing over. The winner of each pool will play the runner-up in the opposite pool in the semifinal.
Tickets to the first round went on sale Nov. 17. Those strips for the individual pools consist of six tickets, one to each of the six games played in one of the four international first-round venues.
First-round ticket strips are available for purchase online at worldbaseballclassic.com, as well as online and by phone in three of the four local markets.
More than 740,000 fans from 48 of the 50 states and 15 countries attended the first Classic.
There were also 486 players that participated, with 235 of those from Major League organizations.
Mike Scarr is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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