Making the pitch for baseball
Silver-winning Team USA says sport shouldn’t be sidelined from future Games
YOKOHAMA, Japan — While USA Baseball couldn’t bring back a gold medal in the sport’s longawaited, brief return to the Olympic program, two veteran faces on the silver medalist American team said the sport put on a sufficiently good show to merit permanent status.
Veteran Todd Frazier and Team USA manager Mike Scioscia have seen enough in their careers to veer toward the cynical, but both seem to have been captivated by the emotional response the Olympic rings produce.
Both said the case for baseball in the Olympics involved not only the six-team tournament but the regional and continental qualifying rounds that each team faced to reach Tokyo.
“You look at the teams that are trying to get into (the Olympics) and see the excitement on their faces, the energy of this wonderful sport,” Frazier said. “Little kids all over the world are focused on trying to be the next Mike Trout or Jacob DeGrom.
“We played against Israel, and who would have thought it, but they’ve got some unbelievable talent. You see countries like that getting into the Olympics, and it’s just fascinating. I hope (International Olympic Committee members) understand that the passion in this sport deserves to be in it every four years.”
Scioscia, who said he will continue assisting USA Baseball in the wake of his retirement as a major league manager, said it would be an “incredible oversight” to sideline baseball once more from the Olympics.
“It’s a sport that deserves the stage of seeing the best baseball players in the world coming together for an Olympic event,” he said. “I hope that someday they see fit to make baseball a regular (Olympic) sport.”
Baseball made its Olympic debut in 1992 after appearances as a demonstration sport dating back to 1912. It continued through 2008 in Beijing before it and softball were dropped from the program.
Neither sport will be played in three years in Paris but could return for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“You get to see how different cultures play the game, with the Dominicans, Mexico, Korea, Japan and our version of baseball,” said pitcher Nick Martinez, who plays for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan and started for the U.S. on Saturday. “It’s just a unique opportunity allow our different cultures to fit.”
Host Japan beat the United States 2-0 for the gold medal, emerging undefeated from a sixteam bracket that included bronze medalists Dominican Republic plus Mexico, South Korea and Israel.
Japan third baseman Munetaka Murakami had an opposite field home run to left center against Martinez in the third inning. Japan added an insurance run in the eighth off a throwing error by center fielder Jack Lopez.
Righthander Masato Morishita got the win, shutting out the U.S. on three hits in five innings before giving way to four relievers who allowed three hits and maintained the shutout.
The United States and Japan entered the tournament as heavy favorites to play for the gold medal.
Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league suspended play to assemble an all-star team, while the Americans relied on a mix of older players such as Frazier and lefthander Scott Kazmir and players from Class AA and AAA farm teams and from the Japanese league.
For Japan, the performance of players such as Morishita and Murakami spoke well for the future of teams in cities like Yokomaha, home of the DeNA BayStars club that occupies the 31,000-seat stadium where Olympic softball and baseball were played.
“I spoke about this to Murakami and I told him, ‘You have to lead the young players in the future,’ ” Japan coach Atsunori Inabi said.
“Those young players are going to continue the tradition of samurai Japan baseball, and what we have gained in the Olympics should be brought back to the team and utilized for the next Games and into the future.”