YOKOHAMA, Japan — As competition got underway in Tokyo, only 142 athletes in the history of the Games had competed in both the Summer and Winter Olympics. But when he dug into the batter’s box on Friday night at Yokohama Baseball Stadium, Eddy Alvarez, a member of the United States' team, joined the club. At the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014, Alvarez, a Miami native who used to perform tricks on roller skates in South Beach as a young boy, won a silver medal as part of the United States’ 5,000-meter relay team in short-track speedskating. At the Tokyo Olympics, where baseball has returned to the Summer Games for the first time since 2008, he is the U.S. team’s starting second baseman. “Turning left,” Alvarez, 31, said recently with a chuckle.

Source: New York Times August 02, 2021 15:22 UTC