Major League Baseball players participating in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics remains a possibility, according to baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, though many obstacles remain to Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper playing for a gold medal.
Baseball was a medal sport from 1992-2008, then was dropped until the 2021 Tokyo Games, when MLB allowed the participation only of players not on 40-man rosters. Even then, many eligible prospects were blocked by their clubs from playing.
While baseball was dropped for this year's Paris Olympics, it was restored for 2028. LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman gave MLB owners a presentation in February on how major leaguers could participate.
“I sat with Casey last week. We’re talking about what can be done? What exactly would it look like? What are the compromises that we would have to make in terms of our season? So I remain open-minded on that topic,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
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“I do think that maybe the thing that I found most persuasive that Casey is saying is forget about what’s going to happen with baseball in the Olympics long-term because I think we all know when you’re in Paris they’re probably not going to build a baseball stadium, right?” Manfred added. “But, but when you’re in LA, you focus on LA. It is an opportunity that we need to think about.”
Japan beat the U.S. in the 2021 Olympic gold medal game with a national team boosted when Nippon Professional Baseball interrupted its season.
Who pays for insurance for major leaguers would be an issue. And even in the World Baseball Classic, a project of MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association, many top players were blocked by their teams, especially starting pitchers. At last year's WBC, Mets closer Edwin Diaz tore his right patellar tendon while celebrating a Puerto Rico victory and missed the 2023 season.
“The feedback that we’ve gotten so far from players is such that there is an interest in participating if given an opportunity,” union head Tony Clark told the BBWAA, speaking before Manfred. “So we expect, at least as of right now based on the feedback that we’ve gotten, that’ll be a conversation we’ll look to have. But the players will determine whether or to what extent that is something that needs to be leaned in on, not just for 2028, but I think it’s probably an important discussion to be had beyond 2028, knowing that the opportunity to have it in 2028 could be a building block toward it being more consistently in the Olympics moving forward.”
