| Event: | Baseball |
| Games: | 2008 Summer |
| Venue: | Wukesong Baseball Field |
| Dates: | August 13–23, 2008 |
| Teams: | 8 |
| Prev: | 2004 |
| Next: | 2020 |
Baseball at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing was held from August 13 to August 23. All games were played at Wukesong Baseball Field, a temporary venue constructed at the Beijing Wukesong Culture & Sports Center. For the third time in Olympic competition, professional baseball players were eligible to participate, though no active players from Major League Baseball were available.
This was the last Olympic baseball tournament before the International Olympic Committee voted to remove baseball from the program in the 2012 Olympics.[1] Along with softball, baseball was rejected for inclusion in the 2016 Summer Olympics at the IOC's meeting in October 2009.[2] However, following a 2016 IOC vote, baseball was again included for the 2020 Games.[3]
This was also the first time that the IBAF's new extra-innings rule was officially in effect, allowing each team to start with two base runners from the 11th inning on.[4] South Korea won the gold medal in a 3–2 final victory against Cuba. The United States won bronze.
Eight teams are competing in the Olympic baseball tournament, and the competition consists of two rounds. The preliminary round follows a round robin format, where each of the teams plays all the other teams once. Following this, the top four teams advance to a single elimination round culminating in the bronze and gold medal games.
See main article: Baseball at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Qualification.
| Event | Date | Location | Vacancies | Qualified | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Host nation | |||||
| American Qualifying Tournament | Aug 25 – Sept 7, 2006 |  Havana | 2 | ||
| European Championship | Sept 7 – Sept 16, 2007 |  Barcelona | 1 | ||
| Asian Baseball Championship | Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2007 | 1 | |||
| Final Qualifying Tournament | Mar 7 – Mar 14, 2008 | Taichung and Douliou | 3 | ||
| TOTAL | 8 | ||||
Chinese Taipei is the official IOC designation for the state officially referred to as the Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan.
See also: Political status of Taiwan.
| Team | Qualification criteria | Appearance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st place of Final Qualifying Tournament | 2nd | ||
| Automatic as host nation of the Olympics | 1st | ||
| 3rd place of Final Qualifying Tournament | 3rd | ||
| 2nd place of American Qualifying Tournament | 5th | ||
| 1st place of Asian Baseball Championship | 5th | ||
| 2nd place of Final Qualifying Tournament | 3rd | ||
| 1st place of European Championship | 4th | ||
| 1st place of American Qualifying Tournament | 4th |
All times are China Standard Time (UTC+8)
| width=170 | Team | width=20 | G | width=20 | W | width=20 | L | width=20 | RS | width=20 | RA | width=20 | WIN% | width=20 | GB | width=40 | Tiebreaker |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 7 | 0 | 41 | 22 | 1.000 | – | – | ||||||||||
| 7 | 6 | 1 | 52 | 23 | .857 | 1 | – | ||||||||||
| 7 | 5 | 2 | 40 | 22 | .714 | 2 | – | ||||||||||
| 7 | 4 | 3 | 30 | 14 | .571 | 3 | – | ||||||||||
| 7 | 2 | 5 | 29 | 33 | .286 | 5 | 1–0 | ||||||||||
| 7 | 2 | 5 | 29 | 20 | .286 | 5 | 0–1 | ||||||||||
| 7 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 50 | .143 | 6 | 1–0 | ||||||||||
| 7 | 1 | 6 | 14 | 60 | .143 | 6 | 0–1 |
| width=35 | Place | width=185 | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | |||
| 5 | |||
| 6 | |||
| 7 | |||
| 8 |