The last scheduled Olympic baseball tournament—capped by Korea’s gripping 3-2 triumph over defending champion Cuba—was a true “classic” by almost any yardstick or from any national perspective. Even for the also-ran Canadians or Chinese or Taiwanese there were precious highlight moments—such as Team Canada’s near upending of the proud Cubans, ruined only by a dramatic late-inning homer from Alfredo Despaigne. The Americans may have failed to redeem their absence from Athens with desired gold in Beijing, but Team USA did make it to the medal stand, despite the presence of the best Cuban and Korean teams ever. And Cuba may have lost the final battle yet nonetheless claimed still another shinning moment in the international baseball spotlight. Only the Japanese “Dream Team”—the pre-tourney odds-on favorites who failed in both of their medal round matches—likely left Beijing with their heads hung low.

Cuban players stand with their silver medals after losing the baseball finals to South Korea at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

In only two of five Olympic baseball gold medal matches could a challenger ever prove capable of solving Cuba’s sixteen-tear mastery of this showcase event, and those two surprising Cuban losses—both upsets of titanic proportions—will now remain the true golden moments in Olympic baseball’s all-too-short 16-year saga. Even if these Games are again reopened to baseball for 2016 or perhaps 2020, or at some other distant future date, the Olympic field will by then assuredly be far more balanced by the presence of top star big leaguers, and thus such upsets will no longer likely be part of the scene. Both championship losses for the seemingly invincible Cubans (2000 and 2008) bore an almost eerie resemblance—both the product of remarkable pitching performances by previously unheralded youngsters on a fast track to future big league stardom. Those highlight-reel outings—the 4-0 shutout by American Ben Sheets in Sydney, and this year’s perhaps superior 8-plus-inning masterpiece from phenom Korean southpaw Hyunjin Ryu—have claimed their spots as the single most unforgettable individual performances of baseball’s most glamorous if now moribund international event. We could hardly have witnessed a more thrilling or fitting final climactic moment.

This was assuredly the best Olympic tournament ever. No one can argue this time around that the two best teams did not reach the showcase the finals. That has not always been true of past Olympic baseball events, such as the ones in Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta (1996), where the Americans twice fell flat, or 2004 in Athens when the Americans unexpectedly sat home on the sidelines while the first Japanese “Dream Team” of Central and Pacific League stars crumbled twice before aging second-tier Australian pros. Cuba’s three gold medal romps in Barcelona, Atlanta and Athens were all earned against a level of international opposition far inferior to the balanced Beijing field. Team Canada with a solid roster of ex-big-leaguers and top minor leaguers finished far off the pace and yet lost all five games by one-run margins. Cuba displayed plenty of offense throughout yet only edged the Americans during pool play by a single controversial run earned with the bizarre new tie-breaker rule. And champion Korea survived two tight 1-0 games (with also-rans China and Canada) to protect an unblemished récord that carried them into the coveted medal round. This tournament was one of nail-biting excitement from end to end and there was no sitting back here—as in the four previous editions—simply waiting to see who would challenge Cuba on the last day for the ultimate prize.

For the Koreans this has to be the highlight moment of their national baseball history. It was a triumph earlier presaged by a Korean ball club featuring some of the same athletes which charged undefeated into the semifinals of the 2006 World Baseball Classic before running out of steam against eventual WBC champion Japan. And the performance of Hyunjin Ryu and teammate Seungyuop Lee (with game-deciding homers in both medal round games) has now sent a loud and clear message that Japanese League baseball is no longer the true kingpin in Asia. And for Cuba—also boasting a similar lineup to that of their runner-up WBC contingent—it was nothing less than another remarkable chapter in international baseball’s greatest success story. The Cubans may have lost the title match by the slimmest of margins, when they failed to rescue victory with the bases jammed in a dramatic ninth inning finale, but the celebrated Red Machine did reach the gold medal final in a remarkable fiftieth straight major international tournament—a récord stretching all the way back to 1961 and the birth of the current Cuban League. For the two finalists of this year’s swan song Olympics it was truly a conclusion without any obvious losers.

There will be many loud complaints back on the baseball-crazy island of Cuba in the aftermath of this failure to capture a fourth Olympic gold in five tries. But this rare loss in a championship final must be seen in its appropriate context. For one thing, Cuba is now competing on a far different playing field than even a half-dozen years back, and yet the surprising competitiveness of the Cuban Leaguers has hardly suffered in the bargain. This final Olympics—like last fall’s Taiwan World Cup, or even the second tier “off-season” Haarlem and Rotterdam events—is not the same “amateur” baseball we celebrated in Barcelona, Atlanta or Sydney. The appearance of top-flight North American, Korean and Japanese professionals has now altered the international baseball scene forever. And yet the Cuban juggernaut has hardly fallen quietly into the shadows. Team Cuba has adjusted to wooden bats, stronger opposition arms, and savvy top-level pros and still maintained its dominant presence, even in the star-studded MLB World Baseball Classic. And most assuredly Cuba will be a force once again when that WBC showcase renews next March.

But this will not stop most Cuban fans from bemoaning any loss and failing to see true victories in the glare of occasional defeats. There will be endless second guessing now. Why didn’t manager Pacheco pinch hit for Yulieski Gourriel in the ninth with either of two Havana hometown favorites, Alex Malleta or Yoandry Urgellés? (Simply because you don’t take the bat out of the hands of one of your major hitting stars with the game on the line, despite any edicts in “The Book” about righty-vs.-lefty match-ups.) Why did management station Héctor Olivera on first base in place of Malleta for the final crucial games? (Simple again: Olivera, with Bell and Despaigne, is the most promising talent in the young Cuba arsenal. Olivera had to be somewhere in the lineup, and don’t forget it was Olivera who launched that aborted ninth-inning final rally.) Why did Lazo work an unnecessary extra inning against the Americans in the semis and possibly tire his arm for the gold medal match? (An irrelevant issue at best, since the silent Cuban bats and not Lazo’s arm are what spelled defeat in the end.) But all this complaining by eleven million sideline managers back home denies two glaring realties. First and foremost, Cuba lost the gold medal match for one reason alone, and that was the masterful pitching of Hyunjin Ryu. And equally obvious, perhaps the most talented Team Cuba to date performed quite admirably and came within one swing of the bat of defeating the most potent Olympic competition ever. Certainly there are no satisfying “moral” victories. But an Olympic silver medal is hardly a disgraceful defeat either. Perhaps the Cuban team did not fail in its mission to reach expected pay dirt as much as the Cuban fans have failed in their mission to enjoy the greatest show in international baseball.

And there was more than enough to enjoy, especially from the perspective of Cuban fandom. The tournament itself had its larger-than-life individual heroes as well as its occasional embarrassed goats. The biggest disappointment was provided by the Japanese professionals who never lived up to their advertised Dream Team status. Much more was expected of the WBC titlists who carried a line-up to Beijing that was the equal of one which upended Cuba in San Diego back in March 2006. Among individual performers, the most heralded—at least until the final day brought Hyunjin Ryu to center stage—was Cuba’s own Alexei Bell. Bell not only reigned as champion batter with a .500 average (16 for 32) but also blasted nine extra base hits, including four triples and monster homers in each of the two medal round games. Bell demonstrated that his récord-busting 2008 National Series was anything but a fluke. Not far behind Bell—if behind at all—was Korean ace pitcher Ryu, who managed a performance that must now replace “The Ben Sheets Game” at the top of Olympic annals. It can certainly be argued that the game pitched by the MVP and top rookie of the past KBO season outstripped the efforts of Sheets on several counts. Ryu totally dominated a more potent Cuban slugging lineup than Sheets did in Sydney, and the Korean ace was also coming off an equally brilliant 1-0 complete game shutout of Canada’s pro-laced lineup only days earlier.

And then there were also the dramatic efforts of a pair of ancient warriors who nearly stole center stage from the numerous younger emerging stars like Bell, Ryu, Olivera and Despaigne. Seungyuop Lee was one of Korea’s legendary home run sluggers less than a decade back yet has of late been relegated to the Japanese minor leagues. Lee struggled throughout Olympic pool play with an anemic .136 batting average (which included but a single extra-base hit). And then the fading one-time national hero upped his game at just the most opportune moments by smashing a pair of crucial homers that decided both medal round matches for the surprise champions. Cuba’s Pedro Lazo yielded the seventh-inning blooper hit in the finale that ultimately provided Korea’s slim victory margin, yet Cuba’s “all-time greatest pitcher” also shut down the Team USA professionals twice with gutsy long relief stints. Lazo walked away from Beijing with two gold medals (Atlanta and Athens) and two silvers (Sydney and Beijing) to punctuate his legendary career as Cuba’s all-time most-winning National Series hurler. In short, there were unparalleled performances here for the ages and ones that international baseball fanatics likely will still replay fondly during a dim future when these games are shamefully absent from London. Olympic baseball could not have hoped for a more entertaining or more fitting final center stage. I, for one, will savor Bell’s and Despaigne’s clutch homers, Lazo’s finest extra-inning hour against the Americans, and Olivera’s emergency heroics at first base and in the batter’s box far long than I will bemoan Yulieski’s double-play roller.

Peter C. Bjarkman is the English-language columnist for www.baseballdecuba.com and is widely considered the leading historian of Cuba’s pre-revolution and post-revolution baseball. His award-winning books include A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 (2007) and Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball (1999, with Mark Rucker). He is currently completing work on two volumes—Baseball’s Other Big Red Machine: A History of the Cuban National Team and Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1962-2007—both scheduled for publication in 2008 by McFarland & Company.