18 INDEPENDENT PLAYERS SPOTTED SO FAR ON THIS SPRING'S WBC ROSTERS

I have not had sufficient time to examine all of the rosters closely since the provisional rosters were announced for the 16 World Baseball Classic teams today, but I have picked up 18 names so far, including several players who were in Independent leagues this past season. I expect to have considerably more to say in next week's Independent Baseball Insidercolumn and possibly in this space. The players identified so far, the team they will play for and their Independent affiliations of the past:

AUSTRALIA (1): LHP Chris Oxspring, Cook County, IL, Frontier League.

CANADA (5): LHP Andrew Albers, Quebec, Can-Am League; RHP Shawn Hill, York, PA, Atlantic League; RHP Scott Richmond, Edmonton, Northern League; INF Jonathan Malo, Quebec; INF Jimmy Van Ostrand, Sugar Land, TX, Atlantic.

ITALY (3): RHP John Mariotti, Quebec; RHP Brian Sweeney, Lafayette, IN, Heartland League, and Somerset, NJ, Atlantic (DNP); 1B Chris Colabello, Worcester, MA, and Nashua, NH, Can-Am.

PUERTO RICO (1): RHP Nelson Figueroa, Long Island, NY, Atlantic.

SPAIN (8): RHP Eddie Morlan, Southern Maryland, Atlantic; LHP Richard Salazar, Sioux City, IA, American Association; Nick Schumacher, Sioux City; INF Barbaro Canizares, Winnipeg, American Association; INF Paco Figueroa, Southern Maryland; OF Daniel Figueroa, Grand Prairie, TX, American Association; OF Yasser Gomez, McAllen, TX, North American/United League; OF Gabe Suarez, Newark, NJ, Long Island, NY, Camden, NJ, Road Warriors, all Atlantic, and Kansas City, KS, American Association, Florence, KY, Frontier and Lincoln, NE, American Association.

Oxspring, Hill, Richmond, Figueroa and Sweeney all played in the major leagues after being in an Independent league.

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