International Baseball Federation - History

History

The first-ever international baseball event was a series of exhibition games that took place during the 1904 Summer Olympic Games in St. Louis, United States. The exhibition proved so successful that it was given an encore at the 1912 Summer Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden.

The two popular showings in St. Louis and Stockholm laid the groundwork for baseball's international surge in popularity, leading the sport to be placed onto the program as an exhibition sport at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games. This exhibition was extremely well received as 92,565 spectators filled the Olympic Stadium in Berlin to watch a game between two teams from the USA.

Following the success of Berlin, the first ever Baseball World Cup was organized in London, England in August 1938. The United States and Great Britain engaged in five games, of which the British won four.

The growth of baseball competitions involving the representation of countries, coupled with the birth of the Baseball World Cup, provided the need for an institution to help develop, organize, regulate and oversee these events, thus the International Baseball Federation was established in 1938.

Conflicts of World War II prompted the IOC to cancel the Summer Games that had been scheduled to take place in Tokyo in 1940 and in London in 1944, thereby halting baseball's tour as a demonstration sport. Nevertheless, by 1950, the IBAF was able to expand the format of the Baseball World Cup that was contested in Managua, Nicaragua to 12 participating countries.

In 1951, the Pan American Games were established and baseball was on the official program from the onset.

In 1952, a Finnish version of baseball (Pesäpallo) was a demonstration sport at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.

In April 1953, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain came together to establish what is now known as the Confederation of European Baseball and organized the first ever European Baseball Championship a year later.

The Baseball Federation of Asia (BFA) was founded in May 1954 as the second continental confederation under the umbrella of the IBAF. The BFA wasted little time in organizing its first continental tournament, as it celebrated the Asian Baseball Championship in December of that same year in Manila, Philippines.

The exposure of baseball to an international audience continued at the 1956 Summer Olympic Games, which saw approximately 114,000 spectators slowly fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground to witness Australia vs. USA in a demonstration contest in Melbourne, Australia. This crowd of 114,000 was registered as a Guinness World Record for the largest attendance for any single baseball game. (The record lasted over 50 years before it was broken at a March 29, 2008 Major League Baseball exhibition game between the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers that drew 115,300 people to the Los Angeles Coliseum.)

Baseball as an Olympic demonstration sport was finally able to take its act to Asia at the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, where baseball was already exceptionally popular.

At the following Summer Olympic Games in 1968, a selection of premiere U.S. college players defeated the Cuban national team twice in Mexico City to win the tournament.

In 1973, the IBAF added the Intercontinental Cup to its tournament program.

In 1978, the IOC awarded the hosting rights of the 1984 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles, and Robert Smith quickly went to work, in his capacity as a member of the United States Olympic Committee prior to becoming IBAF President, to reestablish baseball as part of the Olympic Programme. Smith reached out to the then-Los Angeles Dodgers owner, Peter O'Malley, and University of Southern California head baseball coach and subsequent College Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, Rod Dedeaux. The group organized an IBAF congress the following year in Los Angeles in order to establish an Olympic Baseball Committee. Through these efforts, baseball was again categorized as a demonstration sport and an eight-team tournament was organized at Dodger Stadium, as part of the official Summer Olympic Programme. The present IBAF President, Riccardo Fraccari, was the head umpire of the championship game.

A third branch of the IBAF continental confederations formed in 1985. The Pan American Baseball Confederation (COPABE) was finally established after it was deemed necessary due to the strong expansion and increase of the national member federations stemming from the Olympic Baseball Committee campaign.

In 1986, a historic IOC vote put baseball onto the Olympic Programme as a medal sport for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.

Baseball would travel to Seoul, Korea for the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. This was the final time the IBAF, in conjunction with the IOC, would organize baseball as a demonstration sport at the Olympics before it became an official medal sport in 1992.

In 1989, the Baseball Confederation of Oceania (BCO) was established as the 4th branch of the IBAF.

The African Baseball and Softball Association (ABSA) was formed soon after the BCO in June 1990 in Lagos, Nigeria

Baseball was played up in a traditional amateur format up until the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA.

In 1998, the IBAF, MLB and Major League Baseball Players Association reached an agreement to allow the participation of professional players in international competition.

Team USA used a minor league selection to beat Cuba in the gold medal game at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

Cuba regained the world title, defeating Australia for the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

On July 7, 2005, the IOC Session voted to remove baseball and softball from the 2012 Summer Olympics program.

Baseball made its last Olympic appearance and Korea took the gold medal at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China.

The IBAF, under President Harvey Schiller, attempted to reinstate baseball onto the Olympic Programme, but the IOC vote of August 2009 kept baseball off the 2016 program, as golf and rugby were selected.

In February 2011, Dr. Harvey Schiller was appointed as a member of the IOC's Women and Sport Commission.

On April 1, 2011, the IBAF, under first-year President Riccardo Fraccari, and the International Softball Federation announced that they were studying how to prepare a joint proposal in order to revive play of both sports at the 2020 Summer Olympics.