Olympic Duration?

According to the schedule that's up on the NPB site nenkan, the first game is August 13th against Cuba, and if the team makes it far enough the final game is August 23rd.

Team Japan will be playing warm up games against PL and CL selects on 8-9 August in Tokyo Dome. I'm not sure when exactly the players will be gathered to train for a few days before these warm up games.

How did the Japanese teams agree to give up players for a couple of weeks for the Olympics? Did they work it out so that each team would lose 2 players so it would be fair to each team?

I disagree with you. I think baseball should always be an Olympic sport as it allows the players from the different countries to compete against each other. USA vs. Japan vs. Cuba vs. Korea vs. etc.

Tennis as an Olympic sport? What does it do that Wimbledon, Roland Garros, or the U.S. Open do not offer?

Rhythmic Gymnastics - there's a worthy Olympic sport. Not!

I honestly don't know why this is baseball's last year as an Olympic sport. Maybe it has something to do with the creation of the WBC. I'm not really sure though.

I think that if a player received an invatation to the Olympics, he kind of had to accept because he's being chosen to represent his country. It would've looked really bad if one turned down that request. I think the NPB teams were not happy with losing their star players, but they understood it was for the country. And some teams made moves accordingly to fill the gaps when the players will go to China. It's an issue of national pride in my opinion.

WBC can be best on best because of the MLB players, but it takes place in the preseason with extra limitations like pitch counts (it's understandable, but).

Olympics occurs during midseason so players are on form, but MLB won't release their players so it's not a best on best tournament, and the Americans, especially, seem to treat it with little regard.

Maybe turning it into a U23 (or U-something) event like Olympic soccer would've worked as a nice middle ground. But Olympic soccer doesn't receive much media attention in traditional soccer countries.

And Europeans are powerful in the IOC, and they won't be missing baseball from the already bloated Olympics. But yeah, I agree, rhythmic gymnastics (like figure skating) can disappear, but I suppose they garner higher ratings.