Baseball may be America's pastime, but it's also a worldwide sport. Known as an integral part of U.S. culture, hardball is wildly popular in many other countries, many of which competed in it at the summer Olympics every four years before it was yanked as an event. And while most of the game's fundamental rules remain the same as Major League Baseball's, there were some modifications in Olympic baseball before its demise.
Mercy Rule
In U.S. professional baseball, there's no mercy. You play all nine innings --- or eight-and-a-half if the home team is winning after the visitors' ninth inning at-bats --- regardless of how wide the margin may be on the scoreboard. In Olympic baseball, though, there was a mercy rule. If one team was leading by 10 or more runs after seven or more innings, the game was called and the leading team awarded the victory.
Extra Innings
In U.S. baseball, when extra innings are required by a tie after nine innings, the batting orders continue as they would regardless of inning. In Olympic play, that held true for the 10th inning, but then things got a bit crazy. If the game moved to an 11th inning, the managers were allowed to choose two players to begin the inning on first and second base, respectively. They had to be players who hit back-to-back in the batting order, and the lead-off hitter needed to be the next man in the order. If the game remained tied after 11 innings, each half-inning thereafter began with men on second and third --- the ones scheduled to be the next two hitters in the order. This rule was enacted in an effort to avoid never-ending games.
Bats
While some international leagues and U.S. colleges use aluminum bats, the Olympics featured only wooden bats.
Designated Hitter
The designated hitter, which allows teams to have a permanent hitting replacement for their respective pitchers, is one of the hot-button topics of U.S. baseball. It's used in the American League of Major League Baseball, while the National League still makes its pitchers hit. At the Olympics, the designated hitter option was in effect.
Baseball Removed from the Olympics
All of these rules went for naught in 2005, when the International Olympic Committee ruled that baseball would no longer be included in the summer Olympics after the completion of the 2008 Beijing games. Baseball, which had been a medal sport since 1992, was the first sport to be dropped from the summer Olympics since polo in 1936.
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