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Baseball at the 2004 Summer Olympics

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Baseball
at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad
VenueHelliniko Olympic Complex
Dates15–25 August 2004
Teams8
Medalists
1st place, gold medalist(s)  Cuba
2nd place, silver medalist(s)  Australia
3rd place, bronze medalist(s)  Japan
← 2000
2008 →

Baseball at the 2004 Summer Olympics was held on two separate diamonds within the Helliniko Olympic Complex, from 15 to 25 August. For the second time in Olympic competition, professional baseball players were eligible to participate, though no active players from Major League Baseball were available.

The competition consisted of a preliminary round with each team playing all the other teams once, for a total of seven games. The top four teams at the end of this round advanced to the medals round. The medals round consisted of two semifinal games with the winners advancing to the gold medal game. The losing teams of the semifinals would play in the bronze medal game.

Medalists

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Gold Silver Bronze
 Cuba (CUB)
Eduardo Paret
Ariel Pestano
Michel Enríquez
Yoandry Urgellés
Danny Betancourt
Adiel Palma
Norge Luis Vera
Alexei Ramírez
Vicyohandri Odelín
Frederich Cepeda
Antonio Scull
Luis Borroto
Frank Montieth
Yorelvis Charles
Yulieski Gourriel
Norberto González
Osmani Urrutia
Eriel Sánchez
Carlos Tabares
Jonder Martínez
Roger Machado
Danny Miranda
Manuel Vega
Pedro Luis Lazo
Manager: Higinio Vélez
 Australia (AUS)
Jeff Williams
Gavin Fingleson
Brett Tamburrino
Rodney van Buizen
Andrew Utting
Trent Oeltjen
Nick Kimpton
Ryan Rowland-Smith
Dave Nilsson
Ben Wigmore
Brett Roneberg
Glenn Williams
Rich Thompson
Wayne Ough
Brendan Kingman
Paul Gonzalez
Tom Brice
Craig Lewis
Graeme Lloyd
John Stephens
Craig Anderson
Chris Oxspring
Phil Stockman
Adrian Burnside
Manager: Jon Deeble
 Japan (JPN)
Kosuke Fukudome
Michihiro Ogasawara
Norihiro Nakamura
Shinya Miyamoto
Makoto Kaneko
Kenji Johjima
Yoshitomo Tani
Naoyuki Shimizu
Hitoki Iwase
Hiroki Kuroda
Yuya Ando
Daisuke Miura
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Koji Uehara
Hisashi Iwakuma
Tsuyoshi Wada
Arihito Muramatsu
Yoshinobu Takahashi
Atsushi Fujimoto
Takuya Kimura
Masahide Kobayashi
Kazuhiro Wada
Ryoji Aikawa
Hirotoshi Ishii
Manager: Kiyoshi Nakahata

Team squads

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Team Qualification criteria Appearance
 Australia Winner of Oceania Champion vs Africa Champion (South Africa)  3rd
 Canada Second place at Americas Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Panama  1st
 Chinese Taipei Second place at Asian Championship  2nd
 Cuba First place at Americas Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Panama  4th
 Greece Automatic as host nation of the Olympics  1st
 Italy First place at European Olympic Qualification Tournament  4th
 Japan First place at Asian Championship  4th
 Netherlands Second place at European Olympic Qualification Tournament  3rd

Controversy

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Despite being the defending gold medalists, the United States did not make it to Athens after losing a qualifying game to Mexico, 1–0. The Americas Tournament, which decided which two teams from North America, South America and the Caribbean went to Athens, was single-elimination, when almost all other baseball tournaments are double-elimination. Canada eventually defeated Mexico to advance to the Olympics. The qualifying rounds were also scheduled in such a way that the United States could not even use minor-leaguers and had to rely on collegians instead.[citation needed] Many American ballplayers made it to Athens anyway, as members of the nascent Greek team, which featured only one player actually born in Greece.[citation needed]

Others took issue with the fact that three of the eight slots in the Olympics (including the hosts) were European, while the Americas and Asia (with much stronger baseball nations) got only two slots apiece.[citation needed] The absence of such teams as the USA, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and South Korea led to much media discussion.[citation needed]

The 2008 tournament changed the qualifying procedure; the United States qualified, as did Cuba and the host country, China.

Bracket

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SemifinalsGold Medal Match
 
      
 
 
 
 
 Australia1
 
 
 
 Japan0
 
 Cuba6
 
 
 
 Australia2
 
 Canada5
 
 
 Cuba8
 
Bronze Medal Match
 
 
 
 
 
 Japan11
 
 
 Canada2

Results

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Preliminary round

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The top four teams (Japan, Cuba, Canada and Australia) advanced to the semifinals. To determine the seed ranking of teams tied in the standings, the result of the two teams' game against each other was used. Japan therefore received first place due to the win over Cuba. In the semi-finals, Japan (#1) played Australia (#4) and Cuba (#2) played Canada (#3). The higher ranked team in each game was the home team.

Pos Team Pld W L RF RA RD PCT GB Qualification
1  Japan 7 6 1 49 20 +29 .857[a] Advance to knockout round
2  Cuba 7 6 1 41 17 +24 .857[a]
3  Canada 7 5 2 39 17 +22 .714 1
4  Australia 7 4 3 49 30 +19 .571 2
5  Chinese Taipei 7 3 4 24 28 −4 .429 3
6  Netherlands 7 2 5 29 55 −26 .286 4
7  Greece (H) 7 1 6 24 49 −25 .143[b] 5
8  Italy 7 1 6 19 58 −39 .143[b] 5
Source: [citation needed]
(H) Hosts
Notes:
  1. ^ a b Japan defeated Cuba 6–3.
  2. ^ a b Greece defeated Italy 12–7.
August 15
August 16
August 17
August 18
August 20
August 21
August 22

Semifinals

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Bronze medal match

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Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
 Japan 2 0 4 1 0 0 0 4 0 11 13 0
 Canada 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 5 0
WP: Tsuyoshi Wada (2–0)   LP: Mike Johnson (1–2)
Home runs:
JPN: Kenji Johjima in 1st, 2 RBIs
CAN: J. Ware in 5th, 1 RBI

Final

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Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
 Cuba 0 0 0 2 0 4 0 0 0 6 13 1
 Australia 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 7 0
WP: Adiel Palma (3–0)   LP: John Stephens (0–2)   Sv: Danny Betancourt (1–0–2)
Home runs:
CUB: Frederich Cepeda in 4th, 2 RBIs
AUS: Paul Gonzalez in 5th, 1 RBI

Final standing

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See also

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References

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