“Swing for the fences” is the tagline of a campaign launched by the newly merged international baseball and softball federations in their bid to return to the Olympic program in 2020. The merger of the two federations into the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), which was ratified at the weekend, is meant to add strength to the bid. The two sports were last played at the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 and their bid to come back in 2016 was rejected, as the International Olympic Committee opted to re-introduce golf and rugby sevens. There are an estimated 65 million baseball and softball players around the world, who were asked to register their support on the Playball2020.com website. They are up against karate, wushu, inline skating, wakeboarding, climbing and squash.

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