Team USA in the 2021 Summer Games. / courtesy of ESPN
The 2024 Olympic season has proved an inspiring start for Team USA. The team currently holds first place entering August with twenty-nine total medals. From Simone Biles opening her Olympic performance with Taylor Swift’s “Ready For It?” back at the Trials in June, the team radiated American iconography. However, in terms of American pop culture, the games are severely lacking in one category: baseball.
Since the 1850s, baseball earned the name as America’s “National Pastime,” but this sport is continuously left out of the games. Baseball was first featured at the Olympic Games in 1904, but its presence has been inconsistent. Coincidentally, baseball made its unofficial debut at the 1900 games in Paris as a demonstration sport.
Now that the games have returned to Paris, one would think baseball would find a place on the schedule in honor of its past there. However, since 2008, baseball and softball were made unofficial programs. Only in 2021 did these sports make a comeback in the Summer Olympics (postponed from 2020). Despite their resurgence, both baseball and softball have been omitted from the schedule this year.
Team USA at the 2021 games. / Courtesy of The New York Times.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for selecting which sports will be played at the games. However, the respective city’s organizing committee also plays a significant role in the decision-making process. For the 2024 Olympics, the Paris organizers had the final say in the selection of sports. Instead of continuing with sports featured in 2021 like baseball, softball, and karate, Paris organizers decided to include skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing, and breakdancing.
Although baseball is considered the “national pastime” in the USA, Paris is relatively unfamiliar with the game. According to AS USA, only about 13,000 people in France play baseball, though that number has increased by seven percent in the past year. The Paris committee argued that the game lacked “global relevance” for this year’s games.
In fairness to the Paris organizers, the Olympic games conflict with the Major League Baseball schedule. With the MLB season just past the halfway mark, tensions are heating up across the divisions to secure playoff spots. Sending the league’s best players abroad at this critical point in the season would be detrimental to teams’ success.
On the bright side, a vote by the IOC determined that both baseball and softball will return to the Olympics. Riccardo Fraccari, World Baseball and Softball Confederation president, told press “We are delighted that baseball and softball have been confirmed as part of the sports program of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games by the IOC session.” Additionally, flag football, lacrosse, cricket, and squash were also added to the list during that same conference.
In the meantime, Team USA continues to dominate the games in a promising display of athletic prowess. However, the 2028 IOC agreement raises a larger question: in what form will baseball be incorporated into the Olympics amidst the MLB calendar?
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