in the games from 1992 until 2000, as all athletes were required to be amateurs during that time. Team USA did not place in the 1992 games, but won bronze on home soil during the Atlanta 1996 Games. USA Baseball started using professional-level athletes for the first time in 1999 with the 2000 Olympic Team being one of the first professional national teams to represent the U.S. in international competition. Led by Manager Tommy Lasorda and featuring players Ben Sheets, Ernie Young, and Brad Wilkerson, Team USA went 8–1 in the tournament en route to the Olympic gold medal. The 2000 Olympic Team was later named the USOC Team of the Year. After failing to qualify for the Athens 2004 Games, the U.S. returned to the Olympics in 2008, finishing with a 6–3 record and claiming the bronze medal with an 8–4 defeat of Japan. Baseball was voted out of the Olympic program for the 2012 and 2016 games, but on August 3, 2016, the International Olympic Committee approved the reinstatement of the sport for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. National teams Professional National Team Since 1999, USA Baseball has been selecting teams of professional-level Minor and Major League (MLB) players to represent the United States in various international competitions, including the World Baseball Classic. The first professional national team that the organization selected participated in the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg. The team went 5–2 in the tournament, eventually making it to the gold medal game, where it fell to Cuba 5–1 to claim the silver medal. Also among the first teams of professional players that USA Baseball fielded was the 2000 U.S. Olympic Baseball Team, managed by Tommy Lasorda at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Behind a stellar performance on the mound by Ben Sheets, the team of minor league players defeated Cuba for the gold medal. In 2008, a Davey Johnson-led U.S. team featuring Dexter Fowler, Matt LaPorta, and Stephen Strasburg, took home the bronze medal from the Beijing Games, which currently stands as the last Olympic Games featuring a baseball competition. In 2011, USA Baseball fielded one team of professional minor league players to compete in both the World Cup and Pan American Games. The Pan American team posted a 10–6 record and took home the silver medal from Lagos de Moreno, Mexico. Joe Thurston and Brett Jackson led the team offensively, and Andy