Baseball at the 2000 Summer Olympics

Baseball
at the Games of the XXVII Olympiad
Baseball; at the Games of the XXVII Olympiad
Venues	Sydney Baseball Stadium; Blacktown Olympic Park
Dates	17–27 September 2000
Teams	8
Medalists
	← 1996 2004 →

Baseball at the 2000 Summer Olympics was the third time an Olympic baseball tournament had been held as a full medal sport, and the ninth time it had been part of the Summer Olympic Games in any capacity. It was held in Sydney, Australia from 17 September through to the bronze and gold medal games on 27 September. Two venues were used for the Games: the Sydney Baseball Stadium and Blacktown Olympic Park. For the first time in Olympic competition, professional baseball players were eligible to participate, though no active players from Major League Baseball were available.^[1]^[2]^[3]

In the gold medal game known as the "Miracle on Grass",^[4] the United States became Olympic Champions for the first time in its baseball history by defeating Cuba 4–0.^[5]^[6] Since becoming a medal sport, it was the first time Cuba had not won the gold medal. The gold medal game was also only the second game Cuba had lost in Olympic baseball, having lost to the Netherlands earlier in the tournament.^[1] South Korea won their first Olympic baseball medal, beating Japan in the bronze medal match 3–1.^[6]

Format

The main tournament featured eight teams. These teams were selected from a series of continental qualifying tournaments, with the exception of Australia who qualified automatically as hosts. As had been the case at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, two teams each qualified from the Americas via the 1999 Pan American Games, Asia via the 1999 Asian Baseball Championship, and Europe via the 1999 European Baseball Championship. The final spot went to the winner of a deciding series between the African and Oceania champions, as determined by the 1999 All-Africa Games and the 1999 Oceania Baseball Championship respectively. This playoff was won by South Africa, who swept Guam in a best-of-five series in Johannesburg in December 1999.

The eight teams met in a round-robin series, facing each other once. The top four teams from this then met in the finals, with the first and fourth placed teams playing against each other in one semi final, and the second and third placed teams in the other. The losers of these semi finals competed in the bronze medal game, while the winners met in the gold medal game.^[1]

Teams

Team	Qualification method
Australia	Host nation
Cuba	1999 Pan American Games
Italy	1999 European Baseball Championship
Japan	1999 Asian Baseball Championship
Netherlands	1999 European Baseball Championship
South Africa	1999 All-Africa Games, then defeated Guam in Africa Champion v Oceania Champion playoff
South Korea	1999 Asian Baseball Championship
United States	1999 Pan American Games

Results

Preliminary round

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	RF	RA	RD	PCT	GB	Qualification
1	Cuba	7	6	1	50	17	+33	.857^[a]	—	Advance to knockout round
2	United States	7	6	1	42	14	+28	.857^[a]	—
3	South Korea	7	4	3	40	26	+14	.571^[b]	2
4	Japan	7	4	3	41	23	+18	.571^[b]	2
5	Netherlands	7	3	4	19	29	−10	.429	3
6	Italy	7	2	5	33	43	−10	.286^[c]	4
7	Australia (H)	7	2	5	30	41	−11	.286^[c]	4
8	South Africa	7	1	6	11	73	−62	.143	5

Source: ^{[citation needed]}
(H) Hosts
Notes:

^ ^a ^b Cuba defeated the United States 6–1.
^ ^a ^b South Korea defeated Japan 7–6.
^ ^a ^b Italy defeated Australia 8–7.

17 September	Cuba	16–0 (F/7)	South Africa	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,082
		Boxscore

17 September	United States	4–2 (F/13)	Japan	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,404
		Boxscore

17 September	Italy	2–10	South Korea	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 2,951
		Boxscore

17 September	Australia	4–6	Netherlands	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,762
		Boxscore

18 September	Cuba	13–5	Italy	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 2,424
		Boxscore

18 September	South Korea	3–5	Australia	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,281
		Boxscore

18 September	United States	11–1 (F/7)	South Africa	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,474
		Boxscore

18 September	Japan	10–2	Netherlands	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 11,360
		Boxscore

19 September	South Africa	0–13 (F/7)	Italy	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 2,511
		Boxscore

19 September	Australia	3–7	Japan	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,093
		Boxscore

19 September	Netherlands	2–6	United States	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,352
		Boxscore

19 September	South Korea	5–6	Cuba	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,565
		Boxscore

20 September	Italy	1–6	Japan	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,245
		Boxscore

20 September	Netherlands	4–2	Cuba	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 12,450
		Boxscore

20 September	South Africa	4–10	Australia	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,459
		Boxscore

20 September	United States	4–0	South Korea	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,818
		Boxscore

22 September	South Korea	2–0	Netherlands	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,350
		Boxscore

22 September	Cuba	1–0	Australia	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 14,036
		Boxscore

22 September	South Africa	0–8	Japan	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,512
		Boxscore

22 September	United States	4–2	Italy	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,912
		Boxscore

23 September	Netherlands	2–3 (F/10)	South Africa	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,484
		Boxscore

23 September	Japan	6–7 (F/10)	South Korea	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,970
		Boxscore

23 September	Australia	7–8 (F/12)	Italy	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,562
		Boxscore

23 September	Cuba	6–1	United States	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 14,010
		Boxscore

24 September	Italy	2–3	Netherlands	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,439
		Boxscore

24 September	South Korea	13–3 (F/8)	South Africa	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,864
		Boxscore

24 September	Japan	2–6	Cuba	Blacktown Olympic Park Attendance: 3,479
		Boxscore

24 September	Australia	1–12 (F/7)	United States	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 14,018
		Boxscore

Final round

Semi-finals			Gold medal match

1	Cuba	3

4	Japan	0
			W1	Cuba	0

			W2	United States	4
3	United States	3

2	South Korea	2	Bronze medal match


			L2	South Korea	3

			L1	Japan	1

Semi-finals

26 September	Cuba	3–0	Japan	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 13,727

26 September	United States	3–2	South Korea	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 14,002

Bronze medal game

27 September	South Korea	3 – 1	Japan	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 14,058

Gold medal game

27 September	Cuba	0 – 4	United States	Sydney Baseball Stadium Attendance: 14,107

Final standings

Rk	Team	W	L
	United States	8	1
Lost in the gold medal game
	Cuba	7	2
Failed to qualify for gold medal game
	South Korea	6	3
4	Japan	5	4
Failed to qualify for semi-finals
5	Netherlands	3	4
6	Italy	2	5
7	Australia	2	5
8	South Africa	1	6

Gold	Silver	Bronze
United States (USA) Brent Abernathy Kurt Ainsworth Pat Borders Sean Burroughs John Cotton Travis Dawkins Adam Everett Ryan Franklin Chris George Shane Heams Marcus Jensen Mike Kinkade Rick Krivda Doug Mientkiewicz Mike Neill Roy Oswalt Jon Rauch Anthony Sanders Bobby Seay Ben Sheets Brad Wilkerson Todd Williams Ernie Young Tim Young	Cuba (CUB) Omar Ajete Yovany Aragon Miguel Caldés Danel Castro José Contreras Yobal Dueñas Yasser Gómez José Ibar Orestes Kindelán Pedro Luis Lazo Omar Linares Oscar Macías Juan Manrique Javier Méndez Rolando Meriño Germán Mesa Antonio Pacheco Massó Ariel Pestano Gabriel Pierre Maels Rodríguez Antonio Scull Luis Ulacia Lázaro Valle Norge Luis Vera	South Korea (KOR) Jang Sung-Ho Chong Tae-Hyon Chung Min-Tae Jung Soo-Keun Hong Sung-Heon Jin Pil-jung Kim Dong-Joo Kim Han-Soo Kim Ki-Tae Kim Soo-Kyung Kim Tae-gyun Koo Dae-Sung Lee Byung-Kyu Lee Seung-Ho Lee Seung-Yeop Lim Chang-Yong Lim Sun-Dong Park Jae-Hong Park Jin-Man Park Jong-Ho Park Kyung-Oan Park Seok-Jin Son Min-Han Song Jin-Woo

2000 Olympic champions
United States 1st title

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (2001). Official Report of the XXVII Olympiad (PDF). Vol. 2: Celebrating the Games. Canberra, Australia: Paragon Printers Australasia. pp. 176–9. ISBN 0-9579616-0-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2009. Retrieved 15 September 2010.
^ "The Olympic Team No Dream". CBS News. Associated Press. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
^ OlympicTalk (8 January 2021). "Tommy Lasorda, only manager of World Series, Olympic champions, dies at 93 - OlympicTalk | NBC Sports". Olympics.nbcsports.com.
^ "Oral history: Team USA wins gold at 2000 Olympics". MLB.com.
^ "On This Date: September 27, 2000 – USA vs. Cuba (Sydney Olympic Games) | USA Baseball". www.usabaseball.com. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
^ ^a ^b Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (2001). Official Report of the XXVII Olympiad: Baseball (PDF). Vol. 3: Results. Canberra, Australia: Paragon Printers Australasia. ISBN 0-9579616-1-8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 15 September 2010.

[table_hth_CUB0.24005876213315-7] Cuba defeated the United States 6–1.

[table_hth_KOR0.24005876213315-8] South Korea defeated Japan 7–6.

[table_hth_ITA0.24005876213315-9] Italy defeated Australia 8–7.

[socog2-1] Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (2001). Official Report of the XXVII Olympiad (PDF). Vol. 2: Celebrating the Games. Canberra, Australia: Paragon Printers Australasia. pp. 176–9. ISBN 0-9579616-0-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2009. Retrieved 15 September 2010.

[2] "The Olympic Team No Dream". CBS News. Associated Press. Retrieved 31 July 2018.

[3] OlympicTalk (8 January 2021). "Tommy Lasorda, only manager of World Series, Olympic champions, dies at 93 - OlympicTalk | NBC Sports". Olympics.nbcsports.com.

[4] "Oral history: Team USA wins gold at 2000 Olympics". MLB.com.

[5] "On This Date: September 27, 2000 – USA vs. Cuba (Sydney Olympic Games) | USA Baseball". www.usabaseball.com. Retrieved 23 October 2024.

[socog3-6] Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (2001). Official Report of the XXVII Olympiad: Baseball (PDF). Vol. 3: Results. Canberra, Australia: Paragon Printers Australasia. ISBN 0-9579616-1-8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 15 September 2010.

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