Olympic Baseball Rewind: Watch Cuba vs. USA classic in Beijing 2008 semifinal

Olympic Baseball Rewind: Watch Cuba vs. USA classic in Beijing 2008 semifinal
07/08/2020
It's been an international baseball must-see since the late 1960s. The Olympic flavour adds drama to the tenth episode of the series.

Korea finished round-robin play undefeated at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad Beijing 2008. They went on to outscore Japan (that qualified with a 4-3 record) in the semifinal and earned a spot in their first Olympic final.

The tenth episode of the Olympic Baseball Rewind series, presented in collaboration with the Olympic Channel, features semifinal #2. Cuba suffered just one loss, against Korea, in round-robin play. The United States finished with a 5-2 record after losing to Korea and Cuba.

The USA, managed by former Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series and IBAF World Cup winner Davey Johnson, had a roster of Minor League Baseball (MiLB) veterans and prospects and just one College player: 20-year old star in the making Stephen Strasburg.

Cuba's skipper and two-time gold medalist as a player, Antonio Pacheco, had added a couple of young stars to the roster that won the gold medal at Athens 2004: slugger Alfredo Despaigne, later nicknamed El Inmenso and currently hitting home runs for Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, and pitcher Yadier Pedroso, who years later died in a car crash in March 2013.

Norge Vera, a 37-year old veteran, headed to the mound for Cuba on 22 August 2008. Home plate umpire Juan Rodriguez Diaz called 'play ball'. In the bottom half of the inning, the US handed the ball to Strasburg himself.

OLYMPIC Rewind-Baseball

The OLYMPIC Rewind-Softball series features past games from the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Games.