The first formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was founded in 1878 in Cuba, which maintains a rich baseball tradition and whose national team has been one of the world's strongest. International tours seeded the game throughout the world in the 20th century. Professional baseball leagues formed over the years in the Netherlands (1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936), Puerto Rico (1938), Venezuela (1945), Mexico (1945), Italy (1948) and the Dominican Republic (1951), Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990) and China (2003).
The first international tournament was held in 1938, called the Baseball World Cup, which is played to this day. Only amateur players played in the World Cup until 1996, when professionals were allowed to participate.
