The U.S. men’s baseball team will play in June to determine if it qualifies for the Tokyo Olympics, the first Olympic baseball tournament since 2008.
An Olympic qualifying tournament for North and South America, postponed from last March, is now expected to be held in early June in Florida, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced Tuesday.
Only the winner of that tournament qualifies for the Olympics. The second- and third-place nations advance to the last-chance global qualifier from June 16-20 in Taichung, also a winner-to-Tokyo event.
The U.S., ranked second in the world, is to compete with seven other nations for one Olympic spot in the Americas qualifier — Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, Canada and Nicaragua.