If you want to watch baseball in the Olympics, the 2008 Beijing Games will be your last chance.

A few years ago, while barely anyone was paying attention, the International Olympic Committee voted to eliminate baseball and softball from the list of events for the 2012 London Olympics. As someone who has been around baseball his entire life, I am devastated to see the game’s last hurrah as an Olympic sport quickly approaching.

Many factors contributed to the IOC’s decision. One of them is the popularity of baseball as an Olympic sport.

Certainly, Olympic baseball has never been as popular as the Olympics’ traditional headliner events — track and field and swimming — but it has never been as marginal to sports fans as events such as fencing and synchronized swimming, both of which remain on the docket for the 2012 games.

A former Major League manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers and manager of the 2000 USA Baseball gold medal team, Tommy LaSorda, says this decision is one that is “really going to hurt the Olympics.” He mentions fan enthusiasm, saying that “parks were full at all times,” and asking “how can they take away a sport like that?”

Another argument the IOC has put forth is that baseball is “too American” a sport, and therefore unfit for inclusion in the Olympic Games.

But contrary to the claims of the IOC president, Jacques Rogge, baseball has experienced major international growth over the past decade. Baseball’s popularity has grown rapidly in recent decades across Asia, South America, and the Caribbean.

Japan has its own prominent baseball league, Nippon Professional Baseball, which gave rise to Major League Baseball superstars such as Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ichiro Suzuki.

A major international tournament for baseball — the World Baseball Classic — is played every two years. Baseball and softball, like basketball, originated in America, but they can no longer be called an “American” sport. The IOC should be trying to promote the games that are taking an active role in the globalization of sports, not trying to do away with them.

Baseball is also a sport that falls in line with Olympic tradition. Yes, detractors of Olympic baseball have frequently mourned the fact that Major League players do not take part in the games, but the games have never been thought of as a showcase for the talents of professional athletes anyway. Moreover, there is much to be said for the young players who will take the field for the Olympic squad.

The players for these teams are the Major Leaguers of the future, the players who haven’t yet earned the fame and fortune that comes with a Major League promotion; these are the players who play for the love of the game, and, in the Olympics, for the love of their country. These players aren’t prima donnas, and they still play the game the right way. What could be more entertaining than that? These are the superstars of the future playing at the dawn of their careers.

Olympic baseball is especially important because it holds more national pride than other sports. In Cuba, the members of the national baseball squad are revered as heroes. In July, Fidel Castro wrote a note to the team’s players that said, “Traveling with you is the love of our people of our country.”

What’s more, keeping baseball in the Olympics would be good marketing for the games and the IOC. According to Nielsen TV ratings for the 2000 and 2004 games, the popularity of the Olympics has been declining in America, even with round-the-clock TV coverage from major networks. Ensuring that baseball is played would provide the viewers in some of the largest media markets who tune out after the biggest events some incentive to keep watching. This seems like a no-brainer from a business standpoint.

The presence of baseball in the games is a positive reminder of what baseball can be about, in America and around the world. Today’s children grow up seeing baseball players clouded by steroid scandals, or who play baseball for the love of money instead of the love of the game. Olympic baseball is pure, plain and simple, and the members of Olympic teams play the game in a way that sets a positive example for the people who are watching them.

The IOC has thrown sports fans a curve ball in eliminating a game that has grown from an American pastime to an international one and has struck out on the issue. One hopes it will reassess its thinking before it steps to the plate again.

Mr. Piereson is an intern at the Sun.