teams. The semifinal losers then played a bronze medal game, with the winner earning the medal and the loser receiving 4th place. The semifinal winners played in the final, which awarded the winner a gold medal and the loser a silver medal. During the 2008 games, a unique rule went into effect during games which went into extra innings. If the game was still tied after the completion of the tenth inning base runners were automatically placed on first and second base with no outs. IBAF created this rule to encourage scoring late in the game in order to determine a winner and to address criticisms from the IOC that a baseball game's length was unpredictable. Participating nations The following 18 nations have taken part in the baseball competition. The numbers in the table refer to the final rank of each team in each tournament. See also Olympic Baseball List of Olympic medalists in baseball List of Olympic venues in discontinued events Softball at the Summer Olympics Notes Sources Official Olympic Reports (digitized copies online) International Olympic Committee results database References External links International Olympic Committee – Baseball, archived from the original via Internet Archive International Baseball Federation Oly Sports at the Summer Olympics Olympics Summer Olympics