The WBC Alphabet

Joe Favorito, author of Sports Marketing and PR Roundup, sent me an interesting tidbit about the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Despite consisting of only sixteen teams and no more than 448 players, this year's WBC can claim something Major League Baseball can't. It turns out that each letter of the alphabet begins at least one player's last name in the event. A brief look at the Encyclopedia of Players at Baseball-Reference.com shows there has never been a major leaguer whose last name began with X. The WBC player whose surname begins with X is below, along with one player for every other letter of the alphabet.

A - Giancarlo Alvarado - Puerto Rico
B - Daniel Berg - Australia
C - Francisco Cervelli - Italy
D - Mark DiFelice - Italy
E - Damaso Espino - Panama
F - Nelson Figueroa - Puerto Rico
G - Jason Grilli - Italy
H - Gregory Halman - Netherlands
I - Akinori Iwamura - Japan
J - Gavin Jeffries - South Africa
K - Corey Koskie - Canada
L - Rodrigo Lopez - Mexico
M - Paul Mildren - Australia
N - Dennis Neuman - Netherlands
O - Roy Oswalt - United States
P - Tony Pena - Dominican Republic
Q - Cesar Quintero - Panama
R - Orlando Roman - Puerto Rico
S - Randall Simon - Netherlands
T - Mark Teahen - Canada
U - Tetsuya Utsumi - Japan
V - Javier Vazquez - Puerto Rico
W - Nick Weglarz - Canada
X - Kanghan Xia - China
Y - Kevin Youkilis - United States
Z - Leonardo Zileri - Italy

The World Baseball Classic starts at 4:30 AM ET on Thursday when China and Japan square off in Tokyo (televised on ESPN2). For complete rosters, schedules, scores, stats, and more, visit WorldBaseballClassic.com.