Baseball at the 1964 Summer Olympics was a demonstration sport at the Tokyo games. It would become an official sport 28 years later at the 1992 Summer Olympics. It was the fifth time a baseball exhibition was held at the Olympics. The collegiate United States team played two games against two different Samurai Japan lineups – one a collegiate team, the other made up of adult players from the amateur Japanese Industrial League.
Venue
The game was played on October 11, 1964, at Meiji Jingu Stadium in Tokyo.
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! Tokyo
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| Meiji Jingu Stadium
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| Capacity: 58,000
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Teams
The U.S. team was made up of college baseball players—including eight future Major League Baseball players–and was coached by Rod Dedeaux, the longtime head baseball coach at the University of Southern California (USC). Fitzmaurice hit a home run on the first pitch of the game.
Games
Prior to the game, players held their own "opening ceremony", as they had not been included in the official opening of the Olympiad, due to baseball's status as a demonstration sport. Additionally, the U.S. baseball team was housed at a YMCA rather than in the Olympic Village. Outside of the Olympics, contemporary news reports note that the U.S. baseball team played a series of exhibition games in Japan and South Korea.
The first game, against the Japanese collegiate team, was a 2-2 draw after nine innings, while the second game, against the Japanese adult amateurs, was won by the American team, 3-0. Approximately 50,000 fans watched the games.