Filipino batters welcome baseball and softball return in 2028 Olympics

MANILA, Philippines – Baseball and softball will make a return to the Olympics in Los Angeles, United States in 2028.

And no one is happier than the Filipinos, who have a long history of success with the two sports disciplines.

“Very happy with the development. Great opportunity for young kids playing those sports kasi automatically, you have dreamers and if they work hard, achievers of being Olympian athletes,” said Kiko Diaz, University of the Philippines’ softball team coach and College of Human Kinetics Dean and part of the Amateur Softball Association of the Philippines’ board yesterday.

Both sports have been recently added to the LA Games calendar by the International Olympic Committee along with four other events — cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash.

Baseball and softball were actually included most recently in the Tokyo edition three years ago but wasn’t part of the calendar in next year’s Paris staging.

Apart from perennially lording it over the Southeast Asian Games, the country had excelled and qualified in the World Cup multiple times.

In baseball, the country has been playing it for a century now and, in fact, was memorialized in the country’s Rizal Baseball Complex where baseball legend Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmy Foxx have played.

“Pati sa mga coach, it applies the same so more reason to be better at what we do,” said Diaz.