Eight teams qualified for the Olympic baseball tournament. The host nation qualifies automatically. Additionally, two teams qualified from the American qualifying tournament, and one team qualified from both the European and Asian qualifying tournaments. The field was rounded out by the top three teams from the world Olympic qualifying tournament. The qualifications were held in Taichung, Barcelona, and Havana.
1 2 The third-place Caribbean team was scheduled to advance to the preliminary round. However, Aruba withdrew and the IBAF replaced it with the fifth-place North American team, Mexico.[1]
The European Baseball Championship in Barcelona, Spain served as the qualifying competition for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Netherlands won the tournament for the fifth consecutive time and qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Great Britain and Spain advanced to a final qualifying tournament in Taiwan. Prior to the tournament, Greece was removed by the European Baseball Confederation and replaced with Austria. Czech Republic was downgraded to the last place at the end of the tournament and its wins in the preliminary round vacated.[2]
* Tiebreakers: 1) W-L in games among tied teams 2) Runs against per 1 defensive inning among tied teams 3) Earned Runs against per 1 defensive inning among tied teams
The IBAF and IOC recognize Taiwan as Chinese Taipei. Internationally, the team plays as the Chinese Taipei National baseball team, however are referred to, in the country, as the Taiwan National baseball team and use the flag .
Note: The final game between Lesotho and Nigeria was dependent on whether it had any impact upon the final standings. As South Africa had clinched the championship before the game was to begin, it was cancelled.
Final qualifying tournament
The final qualifying tournament will feature the third and fourth place teams from the Americas qualifying tournament, the second and third place teams from the Asian and European qualifying tournaments, and the Oceanian and African continental champions. However, European runner-up Great Britain withdrew from the tournament and were replaced by the fourth place team Germany.
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China 
Havana 
United States 
Barcelona 
Netherlands 
Taichung [T 1] 
Japan 
Canada 
South Korea 
Chinese Taipei 
