Baseball at the 1988 Summer Olympics was a demonstration sport for the seventh time. Eight teams competed in Jamsil Baseball Stadium in the baseball tournament. The format used was the same as the tournament of four years earlier. Five teams that had competed in the 1984 tournament returned. Teams (1987 Asian Baseball Championship fifth place) (invited) (1987 Pan American Games fourth place, defeat 1987 European Baseball Championship silver medalist in a playoff) (1987 Asian Baseball Championship gold medalist) (1984 Olympics gold medalist) (1987 European Baseball Championship gold medalist) (1987 Pan American Games bronze medalist) (Hosts) (1987 Pan American Games silver medalist) Preliminary round There were two pools for the preliminary round. Teams played each of the three other teams in their division. Blue Division White Division Knockout round Semifinals The semifinals pitted the first-place team of each division against the second-place team of the other division. Thus, Japan (3-0) played against Korea (2-1), which had a tied record with the United States (2-1) but had lost in head-to-head competition against them. The first-place Americans played against Puerto Rico (2-1). Third-place final The third-place final pitted the losers of the semifinals against each, with the winner taking third place and the loser taking fourth. First-place final The winners of the semifinals played each other for first and second place. In a rematch of the 1984 final, the reigning champion Japanese team lost to the United States. Since baseball was a demonstration sport, no official medals were awarded. Rosters United States Source: Jim Abbott, P Bret Barberie, IF Andy Benes, P Jeff Branson, IF Mike Fiore, OF Tom Goodwin, OF Ty Griffin, IF Andrew Kobliska, OF Tino Martinez, IF Bill Masse, OF Ben McDonald, P Mike Milchin, IF/P Mickey Morandini, OF Charles Nagy, P Doug Robbins, C Scott Servais, C Dave Silvestri, IF Joe Slusarski, P Ed Sprague, IF Robin Ventura, IF Ted Wood, OF Mark Marquess, head coach Skip Bertman, assistant coach Dave Bingham, assistant coach Ron Polk, assistant coach Japan Source: 1 Masafumi Nishi, IF 2 Hiroki Katsuragi, IF 3 Kunji Yonezaki, IF 6 Kenjiro Nomura, IF 8 Terushi Nakajima, OF 9 Hirofumi Ogawa, IF 10 Daisuke Tsutsui, IF 11 Tetsuya Shiozaki, P 12 Tomio Watanabe, P 14 Tetsu Suzuki, P 15 So Kikuchi, P 16 Shuji Yoshida, P 18 Takehiro Ishii, P 19 Hideo Nomo, P 20 Atsuya Furuta, C 21 Makoto Maeda, OF 22 Atsuyoshi Otake, C 25