Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

is a professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

league in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, and is widely regarded as the best league for the sport in the world. In addition, MLB is the best baseball league in the world in terms of

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive rev ...

, and 85 countries are active in international competition per WBSC. Unlike

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

, players do not register with a country, so nationality is often disputed when international fixtures come around, such as

Manny Machado Manuel Arturo Machado (; born July 6, 1992) is an American professional baseball third baseman and shortstop for the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball (MLB). Very highly recruited from an early age, he was raised in Miami, where he a ...

representing the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

instead of the

in the

2017 World Baseball Classic The 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, composed of 16 competing nations, held from March 6 to March 22, 2017. It was the fourth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. The first-round hosts ...

. Similarly,

Alex Rodriguez Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez (born July 27, 1975), nicknamed "A-Rod", is an American former professional baseball shortstop and third baseman, businessman and philanthropist. Rodriguez played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the ...

played for the United States in the

2006 World Baseball Classic The 2006 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was the inaugural tournament between national baseball teams that included players from Major League Baseball. It was held from March 3 to 20 in stadiums that are in and around Tokyo, Japan; San Juan, Puert ...

, but before the

2009 World Baseball Classic The 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international baseball competition. It began on 5 9 and finished 5 26. Unlike in 2006, when the round-robin format of the first two rounds led to some eliminations being decided by run-difference ti ...

he announced his intention to play for the Dominican Republic (though ultimately he didn't play in the 2009 tournament due to injury). As such, player representation by birth spans to 25 countries as of the

2022 MLB season The 2022 Major League Baseball season (MLB) was originally scheduled to begin on March 31 and end on October 2. The 2021–22 MLB lockout caused the season to be delayed by one week, starting on April 7. The regular season ended on October 5. Th ...

, with the

topping the list at 1,057 players called up to 26-man rosters. The most represented

overseas Overseas may refer to: * ''Overseas'' (album), a 1957 album by pianist Tommy Flanagan and his trio *Overseas (band), an American indie rock band * "Overseas" (song), a 2018 song by American rappers Desiigner and Lil Pump * "Overseas" (Tee Grizzley ...

country is the

, with 171 players called up to 26-man rosters. The ranking for countries for most MLB players by birth matches well with the

WBSC World Rankings The WBSC World Rankings is a ranking system for national teams in baseball and softball. The teams of the member nations of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), baseball's world governing body, are ranked based on their tournament re ...

, although

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

underperforms in the MLB and European nations have little to no representation, likely due to acquisition fees, travel to home soil, and/or professional baseball leagues in their home country with good revenue.

Africa

South Africa

Americas

Aruba

Bahamas

Brazil

Canada

Colombia

Cuba

Curaçao

Dominican Republic

Africa

South Africa

Americas

Aruba

Bahamas

Brazil

Canada

Colombia

Cuba

Curaçao

Dominican Republic

Honduras

Mexico

Nicaragua

Panama

Peru

Puerto Rico

United States

United States Virgin Islands

Venezuela

Asia

Hong Kong

Japan

South Korea

Taiwan

Europe

Germany

Netherlands

Oceania

Australia

Guam

Footnotes

See also

References