The first-ever international baseball event was a series of exhibition games that took place during the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, MO. (USA). The exhibition was so successful that baseball, as an exhibition event, was repeated at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden. These two events laid the groundwork for the rise in popularity that the game saw internationally in the 1930s.
In 1936, a baseball exhibition was held at the Olympic Games n Berlin. This exhibition was an enormous success as 92,565 spectators filled the Olympic Stadium to watch a game between two American teams.
Following the success of Berlin, in August 1938, the first Baseball World Cup was held in London. With the participation of just two teams, the United States and Great Britain, a series of five games was played. The British team won four of the five games. This was followed by the formation of the International Baseball Federation (IBF).
For many years following, the Baseball World Cup hosted only two to four countries at a time, but in 1950, international baseball had a breakthrough – the 11th Annual Baseball World Cup took place in Managua, Nicaragua, with a record participation of 12 countries. In what was the largest Baseball World Cup to date, Cuba was proclaimed champions.
Over the next 30 years, international baseball prospered through-out the world (highlighted by over 100,000 spectators taking in another baseball demonstration game at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne). As time went on, continents formed their own baseball federations and countries began creating and hosting their very own global tournaments, such as the Pan American Games and the Asian Championships. The game of baseball was growing at a rapid rate.
It was during this period of time that Cuba entrenched itself as an international baseball power. With countries all over the world striving to match their talent level, baseball was being pushed further into the forefront of the worldwide sports scene, and by extension, into the minds of the International Olympic Committee.
When it was announced in early 1978 that the 1984 Olympic Games were to take place in Los Angeles, LA. (USA), Peter O’Malley, President and Owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, organized a meeting that was attended by virtually every delegate from the 37 countries affiliated with the IBAF. The idea of baseball as a true fixture in the Olympic Games was becoming a reality.
Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles was the venue for the 1984 Olympic Baseball demonstration tournament, which was organized with the help of the big league club. The tournament, won by Japan, was watched by an average stadium crowd of 48,000, making baseball the third-most popular sport at the Olympic Games in terms of attendance.
On October 13, 1986, the efforts put forth in Los Angeles came to fruition when, at the International Olympic Committee Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, baseball was included in the official programme of the 1992 Olympic Games to be hosted by Barcelona, Spain.
In 1988, the USA won the last Olympic demonstration tournament at the Olympic Games in Seoul, and Cuba won the first-ever Olympic gold medal for baseball at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. The silvers went to Japan and Chinese Taipei and the bronze went to Puerto Rico respectively.
In June 1993, at a Congress in Rome, Aldo Notari of Italy was unanimously elected as President of the international baseball organization. He immediately took steps towards making a crucial change: transferring the corporate headquarters to the Olympic capital in Lausanne, Switzerland. This was a key move, clearly integrating baseball into the Olympic Movement.
Three years later, in 1996, the baseball tournament in the Atlanta Olympic Games topped its own record with 1,134,203 tickets sold. Cuba took home its second straight Olympic gold at the event, with Japan finishing with the silver and the USA with the bronze.
In 1999, following an agreement between Major League Baseball (MLB), the MLB Players Association (MLBPA) and the international federation to allow the participation of non-25- man roster professional players in the Sydney Games, the federation decided to return to its roots and changed its name to the International Baseball Federation (IBAF).
With the inclusion of professional players, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games baseball tournament was a tremendous success as 97.44 percent of capacity was averaged over the event’s 32 games. There were two firsts in this Games – one, the Olympic gold medal went to the United States (Cuba garnered the silver and Korea, the bronze) and two, the tournament featured teams from five continents, illustrating the growth of baseball internationally.
In the eight years since Sydney, baseball has seen many more positive changes. In 2002, the first ever FISU World University Baseball Championships were played, and the IBAF approved the inception of the Women’s Baseball World Cup. Both events have gone on to see much success, and both will be played in 2008 in the Czech Republic and Japan, respectively.
2004 was a year of ups and downs for the sport. The year was highlighted by Cuba’s gold medal in the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Australia took home the silver for its first Olympic baseball medal and Japan earned the bronze. Prior to the Olympic Games, however, baseball had learned that by the narrowest of margins, it had been voted off the Olympic Programme for the London Games of 2012.
Since then, as part of a global effort to return baseball to the programme in 2016, Major League Baseball has created a new event, the World Baseball Classic (sanctioned by the IBAF), that features professional players from all over the world in a truly international event held prior to the start of the regular season. In 2006 the first World Baseball Classic was held in the United States, with Japan winning the gold medal. The next World Baseball Classic will be held in 2009 with four groups of teams kicking off play in international venues around the world. The first round of play will be held completely outside of the USA. The IBAF has also announced that the 2009 Baseball World Cup will be played across several European countries, rather than in Cuba where it was originally scheduled to be played. Both the World Baseball Classic’s move to four non-USA host cities for the first round of the event and the Baseball World Cup’s relocation to Europe, where baseball is still relatively new and growing, signal increased worldwide growth and awareness of the sport.
Driving this new era of international baseball is Dr. Harvey W. Schiller, who was elected as the President of the IBAF in 2007. Schiller’s primary goals are to see the reinstatement of baseball in the 2016 Olympic Games and beyond and to continue to grow the sport around the world. Through new initiatives, outreach, multimedia efforts and a new Web site (IBAF.org), the IBAF works to educate those not familiar with baseball and to celebrate one of the world’s truly global sports.
