The World Baseball Classic (WBC), also referred to as the Classic, is an international baseball tournament sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the sport's global governing body, and organized in partnership with Major League Baseball (MLB). The winning team is awarded the World Baseball Classic Championship Trophy. It is one of the two main senior baseball tournaments sanctioned by the WBSC, alongside the WBSC Premier12, but is the only one to grant the winner the title of "world champion".

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 team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate.