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Is baseball in the 2024 Paris Olympics? Sport will be absent from 2024 Games before 2028 return

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Is baseball in the 2024 Paris Olympics? Sport will be absent from 2024 Games before 2028 return

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While the Summer Olympics feature a number of sports that are more esoteric, the kinds that the average American viewer only pays attention to once every four years — fencing, rowing, equestrian and even swimming — there are some more conventionally popular offerings.

There’s basketball, in both its traditional five-on-five format and a three-on-three competition. In the Winter Olympics, there’s ice hockey. For the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, there will even be football (albeit the flag variety).

Then, of course, there’s baseball.

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America’s National Pastime has a reach that extends far beyond the United States’ borders, with the sport thriving in Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, among other corners of the globe.

Despite the game’s prominence in the U.S. and abroad, it has a sporadic, uneven history at the Summer Olympics, sometimes appearing at the international competition while other times being noticeably absent.

After being staged at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, what is the status of baseball for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris? Here’s what you need to know:

Is baseball in 2024 Paris Olympics?

There will be 44 sports offered at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris — including, among other things, breakdancing, skateboarding and surfing — but baseball is not one of them.

The International Olympic Committee formally announced the decision in December 2020 when it unveiled the sports that would make up the 2024 games, a list that did not feature baseball.

The decision was largely expected, if only because of baseball’s tenuous run as an Olympic sport.

Though baseball’s Olympic roots go as far back as 1900 — when a baseball game was played as part of the 1900 Paris Exposition in conjunction with the 1900 Summer Olympics, also in Paris — it didn’t debut as a medal sport until the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Its previous appearances in the Olympics were as a demonstration sport.

It was contested in every Olympics from 1992-2008 but, in 2005, the International Olympic Committee voted to drop baseball and softball from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

“They wanted us out,” Don Porter, president of the International Softball Federation, said to the New York Times at the time. “They didn’t get us out — it took them three years, and now they got us out. I just think the IOC wanted some opportunity to introduce several new sports.”

The decision was prompted in part by the absence of many of the world’s best players. Professional baseball players were permitted to compete in the Olympics as far back as the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, but Major League Baseball refused to allow its best players to take part. Given that limitation, the U.S. roster was primarily made up of minor-leaguers.

Though baseball later returned for the 2020 Tokyo games, the timing of the Summer Olympics, right in the middle of the 162-game MLB regular season, makes baseball’s continuous presence as an Olympic event inherently dicey.

“No matter how you put the event together there would be a significant amount of major league players who would be away from their teams,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said to Forbes in December 2020. “It would alter the competition in our everyday game. I do not believe our owners would support some sort of a break in our season. Continuity is really important to our competition.”

REQUIRED READING: Paris Olympics 2024 schedule: Complete time, dates for each event at Summer Games

Will baseball be in 2028 Los Angeles Olympics?

Baseball, as well as softball, will be back in the Summer Olympics for 2028 in Los Angeles. The IOC voted to bring back the two sports in October 2023.

“The choice of these five new sports is in line with the American sports culture and will showcase iconic American sports to the world, while bringing international sports to the United States,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement about the decision. “These sports will make the Olympic Games LA28 unique. Their inclusion will allow the Olympic Movement to engage with new athlete and fan communities in the U.S. and globally.”

While it’s unclear whether MLB players will get the go-ahead to participate, some notable figures from around the league are advocating for it. Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper, a two-time National League MVP, has voiced his support for it.

“There’s nothing more worldwide than the Olympics,” Harper told reporters in London ahead of the Phillies’ series there against the New York Mets in June. “I watch the most random sports in the Olympics because it’s the Olympics and that’s really cool. I love hockey. It’s one of my favorite sports to watch. To see (the NHL) take that three-week break and let those guys go play, that’s another big goal that we should have as Major League Baseball.

“I’ve talked to numerous people with MLB about it. I would love to be a part of that. We have the WBC, but it’s not the same. It’s not. The Olympics is something that you dream about playing in.”

Olympics baseball gold medalists

Despite its status as the birthplace of the sport, the U.S. has won the gold medal in baseball at the Summer Olympics just once in the six times it has been an officially designated Olympic competition. It has often been among the best teams internationally, though, with a silver medal and two bronze medals in that time.

Here’s a look at the gold-medal recipient for each year that baseball was featured at the Summer Olympics:

  • 1992: Cuba
  • 1996: Cuba
  • 2000: United States
  • 2004: Cuba
  • 2008: South Korea
  • 2020: Japan
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