Baseball

Baseball originated in the United States, the game having been invented in the early 19th century. Popular lore attributes its discovery to Abner Doubleday, in Cooperstown, New York, but research indicates that it is highly unlikely he actually discovered the game. Its exact origins are unclear, although it probably had some relation to the British games of cricket and rounders.

American baseball has been contested at the Olympics as a demonstration sport in 1900, 1904, 1912, 1936, 1956, 1964, 1984, and 1988. In 1952, pesäpallo (“Finnish baseball”) was demonstrated at the Helsinki Olympics. American baseball became a full medal sport at Barcelona in 1992. The USA does not dominate the sport in international play, as the Cubans and several Central American countries produce excellent teams, although the USA upset the Cubans and won the gold medal at Sydney in 2000. Of the five Olympic tournaments from 1992-2008, Cuba won three, the USA one, and the Republic of Korea one.

Internationally, baseball started by being governed by the International Baseball Federation (IBF), which was founded in 1938. The organization was known as the Federación Internacional de Béisbol Amateur (FIBA) from 1944 to 1976, and as the International Baseball Association (AINBA [Asociación Internacional de Béisbol Amateur], shortened to IBA from 1984 onwards) from 1976 to 2000. In 1973, a separate group was formed, called the Federación Mundial de Béisbol Amateur (FEMBA), but FIBA and FEMBA merged in 1976 to become AINBA. When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) later also classified baseball and softball as disciplines within one sport, the International Baseball Federation merged with the International Softball Federation (ISF) to become the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) on 14 April 2013, in Tokyo. As of 2024, the WBSC has 190 national federations (182 full members and 8 provisional members) and 14 associate members in 136 countries and territories.

At the 2005 IOC Session, baseball, along with softball, was eliminated from the Olympic Programme, a decision which was confirmed in 2006. The reasons for its exclusion were several-fold. One was that Major League Baseball in the United States had been unable to set up a system similar to ice hockey and the National Hockey League (NHL), which allows all the best players to play, something the IOC wanted. Secondly, the sport was not terribly popular in Europe, which dominates the Olympic Movement. Thirdly, the sport was seen as one played mainly in the United States, and the United States now has very little influence within the Olympic Movement. There were also concerns about doping use in Major League Baseball, and limited re-use of Olympic baseball stadiums in most European nations.

The sport worked hard to be added back to the Olympic Games and, on 3 August 2016, at the IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro, it was voted back on the Olympic Programme for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where the event was won by Japan with a final-game victory over the United States.

Baseball failed to be a part of the Olympic Programme for Paris 2024 but, in August 2022, the Los Angeles 2028 Organizing Committee shortlisted nine proposed sports for consideration as optional events for those Olympics, with one of those sports being baseball/softball. At the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai, India, the IOC approved baseball/softball as an optional sport for the 2028 Olympics, along with four other sports.

Through 2024, Cuba leads the medal count, with five medals and three golds. Twelve Cuban players have won two gold medals at the Olympics, among them Pedro Luis Lazo, who also won two silver medals.