Tokyo 2020 Olympics – Baseball – Men – Bronze Medal Match – Dominican Republic v South Korea – Yokohama Baseball Stadium, Yokohama, Japan – August 7, 2021. Dominican Republic players celebrate winning the bronze medal match after competing. REUTERS/Issei Kato
August 7, 2021
By Paresh Dave and Junko Fujita
YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – Japan won their first gold medal in baseball by beating the United States 2-0 at the Tokyo Games on Saturday, furnishing a long-awaited crown for their country’s most broadcast and beloved sport and denying their foes a second title.
The local organisers returned baseball to the Olympics for the first time since Beijing in 2008 to show the home fans and the world that Japan, amid a growing cross-pollination of players between the countries, have become the best.
Attendance was limied to a couple of hundred sporting officials because of COVID-19 restrictions. But a solo home run by Japan’s Muneteka Murakami split a pitching duel in favor of the hosts.
Japanese players hopped a dozen times in a swarm on the mound to celebrate an undefeated run in the six-team tournament.
The victory came against a U.S. roster restricted by North America’s Major League Baseball (MLB) from drafting top-flight players. While those rules also limited Japan’s picks, their roster drew entirely from the cream of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
For many in Japan, the gold medal – adding to a past silver and two bronze – shows NPB deserves equal global attention to MLB and avoids the disappointment of finishing second again.
The teams had not met for gold before because Cuba, who failed to qualify this year, had taken a final slot in each of baseball’s five earlier Olympic appearances.
TENSE INNINGS
U.S. coach Mike Scioscia at the outset of the tournament said pitching and defense win championships. It turns out offenses also can also lose them.
Five innings of tension followed Murakami’s homer. The sides repeatedly brought runners to scoring position but failed to drive them home, except for when a U.S. throwing error enabled Tetsuto Yamada to score in the eighth inning.
The few observers clapped when Japan escaped jams, roared on the second run and focused their phones on the field before the last out.
For the U.S., the silver medal for second baseman and former speed skater Eddy Alvarez makes him the sixth person to win a medal at the Winter and Summer Olympics.
Earlier on Saturday, the Dominican Republic beat South Korea 10-6 for the bronze, the country’s first medal in a team sport.
Julio Rodriguez, the baseball-loving nation’s top hitter, said the medal meant the world and demonstrated that the small island can compete.
Missing out on the podium marked an upset for South Korea, who had two returnees from their gold medal finish in 2008.
(Reporting by Paresh Dave and Junko Fujita; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Ed Osmond)
