Baseball Twitter amazed by Team Japan’s highly attended first practice for World Baseball Classic: "National pride!" "Love this atmosphere"

The World Baseball Classic better be ready for another heavy dose of Samurai spirit. Team Japan packed more than 18,000 fans into a stadium in Miyazaki, located in southern Japan, for its first day of practice in preparation for the upcoming WBC.

Baseball analyst Shawn Spradling, who independently covers the sport internationally, provided images of the highly attended practice Friday. He noted that the five-hour session was also live-streamed on YouTube.

The 2023 edition of the World Baseball Classic begins March 7, with Team Japan hosting China in its opener on March 9 at the Tokyo Dome. Japan is in Pool B of preliminary round play, along with China, Australia and the Czech Republic.

Team Japan will practice for a week before beginning a series of exhibition games in preparation for the World Baseball Classic. Japan will play warm-up games against the SoftBank Hawks on Feb. 25 and 26 in the same Miyazaki stadium where they practiced Friday before traveling to Nagoya, Japan, to play the Chunichi Dragons on March 3 and 4.

Team Japan won the first two WBC tournaments, held in 2006 and 2009. The team finished third in 2013 and 2017. Japan is seeking to add a third WBC title this season, with the Dominican Republic winning the 2013 title and the United States claiming the 2017 championship.

San Diego Padres starting pitcher Yu Darvish was the lone MLB player to join Team Japan's initial WBC practice, joining 26 domestically-based Japanese players. Darvish was given the go-ahead by the Padres to skip the team's spring training in Peoria, Arizona, and head home to be with his WBC teammates.

Japan has five MLB players on its roster, with the other four to join the squad at the beginning of March. The other four are Los Angeles Angels two-way phenomenon Shohei Ohtani, along with outfielders Masataka Yoshida of the Boston Red Sox, Seiya Suzuki of the Chicago Cubs and Lars Nootbaar of the St. Louis Cardinals.

World Baseball Classic features 20 teams in 2023

Yoshihisa Hirano of Japan pitches in the ninth inning against the United States.

Twenty teams will play the World Baseball Classic. Team Japan's pool-play competitiors from the Czech Republic are making their inaugural appearance in the WBC, as is Great Britain and Nicaragua. The tournament will run through March 21, when the championship will be decided in Miami, Fla.