The Dominican Republic is the first nation to qualify for baseball’s return to the Olympics in 2028 — aside from the automatically qualified host nation U.S.
The Dominican Republic earned one of two Olympic spots for North or South American nations available at the World Baseball Classic by reaching the semifinals with a 10-0 win over South Korea.
The World Baseball Classic marks the first Olympic qualifier across all of the 51 sports contested at LA28.
The other Olympic spot for the Americas will go to Puerto Rico (which plays Italy in the quarterfinals Saturday), Venezuela (which plays Japan in the quarterfinals Saturday) or Canada (which lost to the U.S. on Friday but can still get in via tiebreaker if Puerto Rico and Venezuela lose Saturday).
Even if the Dominican Republic loses its Sunday semifinal to the U.S., it will hold the Olympic qualifying tiebreaker over Puerto Rico and Venezuela thanks to its better group stage record (4-0 versus 3-1 for Puerto Rico and Venezuela).
At the 2020 Tokyo Games, the Dominican Republic beat South Korea 10-6 in the bronze-medal game in the most recent Olympic baseball tournament.
Baseball was an Olympic medal sport from 1992 through 2008, then was dropped from the program. It returned for the Tokyo Games under a new rule that allows local organizers to propose the addition of sports for their Games only.
Baseball was not proposed for the 2024 Paris Games. Then LA28 proposed baseball for its Games, and it was approved by the IOC, along with softball, flag football, cricket, lacrosse and squash.
It’s possible that MLB players participate in the Olympics for the first time at LA28.
If so, the Dominican Republic could field a team with All-Stars Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Manny Machado and Julio Rodriguez (a Tokyo Olympian), all of whom are on the World Baseball Classic roster.
The rest of the 2028 Olympic baseball field will be determined at the November 2027 Premier12 tournament (one spot for Asia, one for Europe/Oceania) and a final qualifier no later than March 2028 (that will not include teams from the Americas).
Correction: An earlier version of this post did not include Canada still having a chance to qualify for the Olympics.
