Smith is often acknowledged as being responsible for baseball becoming an official Olympic sport.Baseball was allowed as a demonstration sport at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and Smith hoped that it would be played for medals in 1988 in Seoul.[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E5DE1538F936A3575AC0A964948260 He and baseball's supporters in the effort did not make that goal, but nevertheless Smith's time as president was unique in that he saw the end to decades of work by baseball enthusiasts when the International Olympic Committee decided to add baseball as an official sport of the Games for 1992. He oversaw the winning of the first-ever gold medal for baseball, won by Cuba in Barcelona in 1992.[http://www.nysun.com/article/36810] The International Olympic Committee voted in 2006 to drop baseball and softball in the Olympics, beginning with the 2012 Games in London.