Japan unveils its Olympic baseball team

(BEIJING, July 22) -- Japan unveiled its 24-man baseball team for Beijing 2008 last week.

All 24 players are from Japan's professional leagues. Seven of them were medalists at the World Baseball Classic in 2006, while four players will be making their international debut in Beijing.

"This is a very strong team," Japan manager Senichi Hoshino was quoted by NBC as saying, "One that we are confident will perform well in Beijing.''

Japan's national baseball team won silver at Atlanta 1996 and bronze at Barcelona 1992 and Athens 2004.

Japan's Olympic baseball team includes the following players:

Pitchers: Koji Uehara,Kenshin Kawakami,Hitoki Iwase, Kauai Fujikawa,Yu Darvish,Yoshihisa Naruse,Tsuyoshi Wada,Toshiya Sugiuchi,Masahiro Tanaka,Hideaki Wakui

Catchers: Shinnosuke Abe,Akihiro Yano,Tomoya Satozaki

Infielders: Masahiro Araki, Takahiro Arai, Shuichi Murata, Shinya Miyamoto, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Munenori Kawasaki, Hiroyuki Nakajima

Outfielders: Masahiko Morino, Norichika Aoki, Atsunori Inaba, Takahiko G.G. Sato