Bryce Harper walked into Citizens Bank Park on July 26 wearing a red, white and blue United States Olympic Team hat. The two-time MVP’s message was loud and clear: He wants in.
The Paris Games, set to conclude this weekend, have been a two-week celebration of sport, a wondrous delight full of the action, glory and joy we’ve come to expect from the Olympics. Yet baseball, which is both America’s pastime and a growing global force, is noticeably absent from this year’s cycle. That’s partly because active Major League Baseball players have never participated in the Olympics.
“You want to grow the game, right?” Harper told Sports Illustrated during the MLB All-Star Game in July. “Why wouldn’t you want to grow it at the peak [of sports]?”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani agreed, telling SI, “I’d like to play in the Olympics. Also, knowing the fact that there will be non-baseball fans watching the games as well, I think it would be really good for the baseball industry.”
On Thursday in Paris, an unforgettable semifinal basketball game showed what’s possible. LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and the United States team authored a magnificent comeback against a Nikola Jokić-led Serbian squad. It was, quite simply, one of the most iconic games in basketball history. Having such generational players shine together on the world stage was a landmark moment for the sport and the Games.
Understandably, many around the baseball world want a piece of that action.
Casey Wasserman is the CEO of Wasserman Sports, a talent agency that represents a horde of MLB stars, including Zack Wheeler, Tyler Glasnow, Adley Rutschman, Chris Sale and Byron Buxton. He’s also the chairman of the L.A. 2028 Olympic Committee. According to The Athletic, Wasserman made a presentation at the MLB owners meetings in February in which he pushed for MLB participation in the 2028 Games.
Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has been an enormous advocate of the World Baseball Classic, has appeared uncharacteristically upbeat about Wasserman’s idea.
“I remain open-minded on that topic,” Manfred told a room of reporters at the All-Star Game. “Maybe the thing that I found most persuasive that [Casey said]: Forget about what’s gonna happen with baseball in the Olympics long-term, because I think we all know when you’re in Paris, they’re probably not gonna build a baseball stadium, but when you’re in L.A., it is an opportunity that we need to think about.”
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Why isn’t there baseball in Paris?
In July 2005, IOC President Jacques Rogge walked out of a conference room in Singapore and told Olympic baseball (and softball) to beat it. The Belgian bigwig cited two main reasons: (1) doping and (2) a lack of competition. It marked the first time in 69 years that a sport was axed from the Olympic program.
At that time, steroids had become the biggest story in baseball. The Mitchell Report was still two years away. The heyday of comic-book muscularity had passed, but MLB was still quite behind the times — and, more importantly, behind the Olympics — when it came to testing and enforcement for PEDs. Rogge and his committee mates didn’t want that stain on the Summer Games.
But lack of interest was an even bigger issue, one rooted in the sport’s history with the Games.
When baseball first appeared as an official part of the Olympic program in the 1992 Games in Barcelona, only amateur players were eligible. And so Cuba, whose top domestic players were technically considered amateurs, dominated the proceedings, winning gold in ‘92 and again in ‘96. That dynamic shifted in 2000, when professionals were allowed to participate for the first time.
Still, MLB declined to pause the season or release its big leaguers, so a Team USA composed of prospects such as Adam Everett, Sean Burroughs, Ben Sheets and Brad Wilkerson won gold. Their success made some headlines stateside but didn’t lead to a tidal wave of global interest. A lackluster 2004 tournament in Athens — for which the United States, Dominican Republic, Korea and Venezuela didn’t even qualify — pushed baseball further toward the chopping block.
“In the case of baseball, the best athletes are not competing,” Rogge said in 2005 after announcing the sport’s removal from the Olympic program. “And the major athletes perform in an environment where doping controls are not what we have in the Olympic world.”
Baseball returned for the 2020 Tokyo Games under a provision that allows host nations to propose sports with significant domestic followings. In the summer of 2021, Japan paused its domestic league and won the Olympic tournament with a stacked roster of future MLBers such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, Seiya Suzuki and Masataka Yoshida. The silver medal-winning U.S. team featured a mix of prospects such as Triston Casas and Joe Ryan, Americans playing overseas such as Nick Martinez and Scott McGough, and over-the-hill veterans such as Todd Frazier and Edwin Jackson. The Dominican team won bronze with a similar group that included then-top Mariners prospect Julio Rodriguez and a past-his-prime José Bautista.
Baseball has been absent, once again, from the Paris Games, but it’s highly likely, given the sport’s fan base in the U.S. and the preexisting baseball infrastructure in Los Angeles, that it returns for 2028. That puts the ball in MLB’s court. The league could continue the recent state of play, filling the Olympic tourney with prospects and has-beens, or it can find a way for the game’s brightest stars to shine on the world stage.
How would Olympic baseball with MLB players work?
Depending on the format, an Olympic baseball tournament could take anywhere from six to 12 days and include six or eight teams. MLB already pauses its season for the All-Star break, which, in 2028, is conveniently slated for the week preceding the Opening Ceremony. The league could nix the All-Star Game for a year, extend the break by a few days, make up the difference by starting the season earlier and get Bryce Harper on national TV in the stars and stripes. Or the league could hold the All-Star Game in Southern California and use it as a sort of kick-off event for the Olympics, as a year without a Midsummer Classic would have negative repercussions for the league and a number of its partners.
Practically, for things to move forward, Wasserman and his supporters need to secure buy-in from three main parties: (1) Manfred, (2) the 30 MLB owners and (3) the MLB Players Association. The assumption around baseball is that Manfred, who has announced that 2028 will be his last full season, is generally in favor of getting MLB players to L.A. and likely views it as a potentially meaningful part of his legacy.
The MLBPA will, according to union head Tony Clark, gauge interest from its constituents and continue to engage the league in conversation. In other words, if enough players want to take the risk, the union is willing to listen.
Whereas pitchers are sometimes hesitant to participate in the World Baseball Classic because they aren’t fully ramped up when the tourney happens in mid-March, hurlers would likely feel safer about the prospect of a July competition. Frankly, there’s no way to completely mitigate the injury risk; the financial safety net of injury insurance is nice but can’t hit .300 during a pennant race. A major injury to a key player — like when Mets closer Edwin Díaz tore his ACL during the 2023 WBC — would undeniably be an optics disaster.
The biggest unknown is whether Manfred can convince all 30 MLB owners that the juice is worth the squeeze. Pausing the season in July would involve some financial hit by necessitating either more games in the early spring, when attendance tends to be lower, or a truncated season, which is generally believed to be off the table. And, of course, general managers and front office execs cringe at the thought of losing a key player to injury in an international tournament.
Yet people around baseball consider the 2023 World Baseball Classic to have been a rip-roaring success. And while nothing will ever replicate the drama of Shohei Ohtani facing off against Mike Trout with two outs in the ninth inning of a championship game, the buzz of international baseball has never been louder. Star players want to participate in the Olympics. The commissioner seems willing to push for it. There’s a way to solve the logistical puzzle.
Whether the sport remains in the Olympics beyond 2028 is beside the point. There is an unmissable opportunity rapidly approaching.
