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 was an official sport at the inaugural 1981 edition of the World Games, and it became a full medal Olympic sport for men’s teams 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 did 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, and would be known as the Federación Internacional de Béisbol Amateur (FIBA) from 1944 onwards. In 1973, a separate group was formed, called the Federación Mundial de Béisbol Amateur (FEMBA), but FIBA and FEMBA merged in 1976 to become the Asociación Internacional de Béisbol Amateur (AINBA). The organization would then be rebranded to the International Baseball Association (IBA) from 1984 until 2000, when it changed back to its original name, International Baseball Federation, but now with the acronym IBAF.

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 at the Olympic competitions, something the International Olympic Committee (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.

When the IOC later classified baseball and softball as disciplines within one sport, the IBAF merged with the International Softball Federation (ISF) to become the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) on 14 April 2013, in Tokyo, Japan. As of January 2026, the WBSC has 192 national federations (185 full members and seven provisional members) and 15 associated members in 142 countries and territories.

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 (12) Cuban players have won two gold medals at the Games, among them Pedro Luis Lazo, who added two silver medals to his two Olympic titles.