A U.S. baseball team of years-ago MLB All-Stars, minor leaguers and even a Winter Olympian qualified for the Tokyo Games on Saturday night, completing a wild two-year journey.
The U.S. won a North and South American Olympic qualifying tournament, going 4-0, capped by a 4-2 victory over Venezuela in South Florida.
The field for the first Olympic baseball tournament since 2008 is nearly complete: host Japan, the unlikely story of Israel, Mexico, South Korea and now the Americans.
A last-chance qualifying tournament later this month will determine the sixth and final nation, but it won’t be Cuba, the most successful nation in Olympic baseball’s previous stint as a medal sport from 1992 through 2008.