Baseball had its second appearance as an official medal sport at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, United States, with games played at Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium. Eight nations competed, with the preliminary phase consisting of a single round-robin tournament. Playoffs were then held, with the four highest ranked teams advancing. For the semifinals, the first place team played the fourth place team and the second place team played the third place team. The winners of those semifinals competed against each other for the gold medal, with the loser getting the silver medal. The teams defeated in the semifinal played a match for the bronze medal.

Baseball was an event open only to amateurs for the second and last time. Meanwhile, Cuba, which went undefeated in the tournament, used its best players as they were amateurs in name only, with all necessary funding coming from the state.

Medalists

{| class="wikitable"

! style="background-color:gold;"| Gold:

! style="background-color:silver;"| Silver:

! style="background-color:#CC9966;"| Bronze:

|-

| <br />Juan Manrique Garcia<br />Orestes Kindelán<br />Antonio Scull<br />Alberto Hernández<br />Antonio Pacheco Massó<br />Juan Padilla<br />Omar Linares<br />Lázaro Vargas Alverez<br />Miguel Caldés Luis<br />Eduardo Paret<br />José Estrada González<br />Rey Isaac Vaillant<br />Luis Ulacia Alverez<br />Pedro Luis Lazo<br />Eliecer Montes de Oca<br />José Contreras<br />Omar Luis Martinez<br />Omar Ajete<br />Ormari Romero<br />Jorge Fumero

| <br />Masahiko Mori<br />Jutaro Kimura<br />Masao Morinaka<br />Hitoshi Ono<br />Takashi Kurosu<br />Masahiro Nojima<br />Makoto Imaoka<br />Kosuke Fukudome<br />Takayuki Takabayashi<br />Yasuyuki Saigo<br />Masanori Sugiura<br />Takeo Kawamura<br />Koichi Misawa<br />Hideaki Okubo<br />Nobuhiko Matsunaka<br />Tadahito Iguchi<br />Takao Kuwamoto<br />Daishin Nakamura<br />Tomoaki Sato<br />Yoshitomo Tani

| <br />Kris Benson<br />R. A. Dickey<br />Troy Glaus<br />Chad Green<br />Seth Greisinger<br />Travis Lee<br />Augie Ojeda<br />Jason Williams<br />Chad Allen<br />Kip Harkrider<br />A. J. Hinch<br />Jacque Jones<br />Mark Kotsay<br />Matt LeCroy<br />Braden Looper<br />Brian Loyd<br />Warren Morris<br />Jeff Weaver<br />Jim Parque<br />Billy Koch

|}

Teams

  • (Hosts)
  • (1995 Asian Baseball Championship gold medalist)
  • (1995 Asian Baseball Championship silver medalist)
  • (1995 European Baseball Championship gold medalist)
  • (1995 European Baseball Championship silver medalist)
  • (1995 Pan American Games gold medalist)
  • (1995 Pan American Games silver medalist)
  • (Oceania Baseball Championship gold medalist, defeat 1995 Africa Cup Baseball Championship in a playoff)

Preliminary round

<section begin=Prelim />