Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Baseball's tentative outreach to the IOC that's full of qualifiers

It's a good thing Stubby Clapp is retiring after Beijing because, as you likely know, baseball has been booted out of the Games for 2012. It's quite the accomplishment actually. The last sport to be removed was polo--you know, horses, rich people, Prince Charles, that polo.

Sadly, the IOC also decided to remove softball fastball from the Games as well, thus taking away the biggest prize available to women participating in bat to ball sports (and a decision that flies in the face of the IOC's stated goal of increasing female participation in the Games up to the level of the men).

What was glaring about the decision was that a game widely played in North and Latin America as well as Asia got the shaft while a game like handball--really only played in eastern Europe and often featured in North American gym classes during the Games of Low Organization unit--remained. If you ever wonder where the IOC's power base lies consider that.


However, there are rumblings that baseball may find its way back onto the program for 2016. It's being reported that MLB may be willing to shut the season down if the Games are awarded to Japan or Chicago. Since those countries have pre-established baseball infrastructure it's thought that it would be an easy reintegration.

There is no word on fastball, but one would suspect that the two would be a package--the IOC can only ignore its equality policies so much...

The tournament would be similar to hockey in the Winter Games in that it would be consolidated into a week format.

Baseball belongs in the Olympics. The World Baseball Classic demonstrated how exciting international ball can be. If something can be worked out to get the games on the world's biggest sporting stage--and to get rid of the pitch counts that are a plague at the WBC -- then everyone wins.

7 comments:

Jordie Dwyer said...

Pitch counts....uggggggg
The bane of an umpire's existence in Alberta at the minor levels...
Ever seen a ball game where each team has 12 players and because of the pitch counts and the fact they have to play more games that weekend, each and every player pitches in a single game - now try to keep that under 4 hours......

sager said...

Didn't they used to just cap how many innings/outs a pitcher could get?

I just keep harkening back on that 1982 Napanee midget team (no, Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite wasn't on that team) that had Bill Langridge through like five complete games in a row at the nationals.

sager said...

throw.

Dennis Prouse said...

We think baseball and fastball deserved to be tossed from the Olympics.

Yours sincerely,

Rhythmic Gymnastics and Synchronized Swimming

sager said...

Don't get me started on the horsey people!

Duane Rollins said...

So you won't be subscribing to CBC Bold for the Olympics Neate?

The three day event...think about it!

Below, something I won't admit easily:

Equestrian coverage on the CBC out draws TFC. Sorry, taped equestrian coverage.

You didn't hear it from me though.

sager said...

TFC's in their second year. People have been riding horses for much longer.