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.