Baseball could make an Olympic comeback in 2020

Baseball could make a comeback in the Olympics
(Image credit: Lo Kuo-Hui/Getty Images)

Baseball and softball are on the shortlist for the 2020 summer games in Tokyo, the event's organizing committee announced Monday. The sports were cut from the competition after 2008, when Beijing played host.

Other sports whose International Olympic Committee-recognized federations could make the cut are bowling, karate, roller sports, climbing, squash, surfing, and kung fu. Don't expect the more outlandish sports of the bunch to get approved, though: Tokyo is trying to save money on the games by making use of existing sports facilities, rather than building new ones, as Quartz notes.

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Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.