There is national pride on the line at the World Baseball Classic. There are international reputations to uphold. And for some teams, there’s a lot more than that.
Even if many of their players don’t realize it yet.
Although the 2028 Olympic Games are more than two years away, the WBC will represent the only chance for teams from the Americas to qualify for the six-team field that will compete at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, according to procedures released by the World Baseball Softball Confederation on Friday.
Team USA receives an automatic bid as the host nation. The next two highest finishers in the WBC among nations from the Americas will clinch two more places in the Olympic field. They will become the first qualified teams across all sports on the 2028 Olympic program.
Ten of the 20 participating nations in the WBC have an opportunity to qualify: Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. The field includes several perennial powers in international competitions. And teams such as Venezuela and the Dominican Republic could send All-Star-studded contingents to Los Angeles now that there is momentum for Major League Baseball to allow its players to participate in the 2028 Games.
Team Venezuela celebrates with teammates after hitting a home run against Team Israel. (Rich Storry / Getty Images)
But those nations have to qualify first. Only two will succeed. And here’s the important (and quixotic) part: After the WBC, there will be no second chance.
That’s because the WBSC has designated the 2027 Premier 12 tournament, to be held at the Tokyo Dome, as the qualifier for the highest-placed Asian team and the top team from Europe or Oceania.
The winner of a final tournament to be held no later than March 2028 at a site to be determined would clinch the sixth and final qualifying spot. But those tournament participants will be limited to two eligible teams from the 2027 European Championship, two eligible teams from the 2027 Asian Championship, the African champion and the highest-placed eligible team from the Oceania Championship. There will be no representation from the Americas.
Put another way: If the Dominican Republic fails to qualify for the 2028 Olympics in the WBC and then goes on to win the Premier 12 championship, it won’t matter. The Dominican team will be shut out of competing in Los Angeles. The opposite scenario is true as well. Even if an Asian nation such as Japan wins the WBC, it will not qualify for the Olympic field. Japan must place high enough in one of the other two tournaments to earn its spot.
Why should teams from the Americas receive just one shot to qualify for the Olympics while Asian or European teams essentially receive two? Well, that probably has to do with the fact that the Americas are already guaranteed one spot for the host nation. Of course, that rationale isn’t likely to seem fair to players, coaches and officials representing countries like Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico, several of which would be shut out of the Olympics a full two years before the games are scheduled to take place.
Baseball made its Olympic debut as a demonstration sport as early as 1900; the US played well-attended exhibitions against an Australian team at the 1956 Games in Melbourne and a Japanese team at the 1964 Games in Tokyo. After that, baseball disappeared from the Olympic program for 20 years before it was revived as a demonstration sport with a tournament format in 1984, the last time the Games were staged in Los Angeles.
Baseball became a medal sport for the first time at the 1992 Games in Barcelona and remained on the program through 2008 but was dropped before the London Games in 2012. Baseball returned to the medal stand for the 2020 Games in Tokyo, which took place a year later because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was dropped again for the 2024 Games in Paris but will return as a medal sport in Los Angeles. (It will be the second time that baseball players will be awarded medals on American soil; Cuba won gold at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, while Japan took silver and the U.S. won bronze.)
Team USA nearly failed to qualify for the 2020 Games in Tokyo. At the 2019 Premier 12 tournament in Japan, an American team made up mostly of minor-league prospects and veterans on their last legs was upset by Mexico in the bronze medal game, sending the Mexican baseball team to the Olympics for the first time. The Americans had to win a last-chance tournament to secure the final spot in the 2020 Olympic field.
This time, Team USA has nothing to worry about. The Americans are in. For the other nine nations from the Americas in the WBC field, though, it’s now or never.