Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Monday said a recommendation by organizers of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo to include baseball was an “exciting step” toward seeing the game return to a major global stage.
Japanese organizers urged the return of baseball and softball to the roster of Olympics events. A decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is not due until August next year.
“Today’s announcement by Tokyo 2020 to include baseball/softball into its proposal for additional events at the 2020 Olympic Games is an exciting step forward to hopefully seeing our game return to this important platform,” Manfred said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
Baseball and softball were Olympic events until 2012, when the IOC’s 2005 decision to drop the sports took effect.
Cincinnati Reds two-time All-Star Todd Frazier said baseball’s return to the Olympics would be great for the sport.
“It’s fun, it’s intense. I would love to have baseball be part of the Olympics again,” Frazier, who played for the US twice while in college, although not at the Games, told reporters. “It’s great to watch. It would be a thrill to play in.”
The Olympics take place during the MLB season and the Games’ failure to lure the world’s best players was a factor in the sport being dropped from the Olympic program.
Frazier and others, including Canadian teammate Joey Votto, did not think MLB would halt its season during the Olympics, as the National Hockey League does.
“It would be best if baseball were part of the Winter Olympics [to coincide with baseball’s off-season],” Votto said before the Reds’ game against the Nationals. “The Olympics are all about getting the best in the world. Without disrespecting the players who played before, the Olympics were just not getting the best players.”
The Washington Nationals’ Clint Robinson said baseball “is one of the most popular sports in the world. I don’t see how it cannot be part of the Olympics.”
Baseball/softball is the biggest sport not currently part of the Olympic Games, World Baseball Softball Confederation president Riccardo Fraccari said.
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