Olympic baseball first appeared at the 1904 St. Louis games. Eight years later, in 1912, in Stockholm, a United States team played against host Sweden, winning 13–3. Baseball was also played at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, the American team beating the French team 5–0 in a four-inning exhibition game. In 1936, in Berlin, two United States teams played each other before approximately 90,000–100,000 spectators at the Reichsportsfeld. The 1952 Helsinki event was a modified form of the sport, Finnish baseball, played by two Finnish teams. Australia played a one-game exhibition against the United States in 1956 Melbourne and Japan did the same in 1964 in Tokyo. With a crowd of nearly 114,000 spectators, this game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground held the record for the highest attended exhibition baseball game ever until a 2008 American game in Los Angeles. At the 1988 Seoul games, it was termed a demonstration sport. Japan defeated the United States in the inaugural tournament finale in 1984. In 1988, the United States won over Japan. In 2000, pros were admitted, but MLB refused to release its players in 2000, 2004, and 2008, and the situation changed only a little: the Cubans still used their best players, while the Americans started using minor leaguers. The IOC cited the absence of the best players as the main reason for baseball being dropped from the Olympic program. At the IOC meeting on July 7, 2005, baseball and softball were voted out of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. On August 3, 2016, during the 129th IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the IOC approved the Tokyo Organizing Committee's final shortlist of five sports, which included baseball, to be included in the program during the 2020 Summer Olympics. Baseball will not be included in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, but it is expected that it will be included along with softball, in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Softball at the Summer Olympics was on the Olympic program from 1996 to 2008. It was introduced at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Softball was removed from the program for 2012 and 2016, but was added for a one-off appearance, along with baseball, for the 2020 Summer Olympics (which was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).