Well if Rio gets it would they have the games during their summer (our winter)?

Many Europeans have the impression that baseball isn't an international game because it's not played widely in Europe. It is true that South Africa is the only African country where baseball is played much, but the game is really growing quite quickly there, and I bet we see a few South African major leaguers in the next 10 years. We also have the first major leaguer in quite some time who was raised in Europe now in Rick Vandenhurk.

Well if Rio gets it would they have the games during their summer (our winter)?

Rio is tropical, just north of the tropic of capricorn, about the same relative lattitude as Havana, so it probably wouldn't matter if it was held in local winter.

When were the Sydney games? Late Sep IIRC.

Tangetially on topic, Bob Harig, in an ESPN thingy on whether golf should be in the Olympics posits:

There is a simple litmus test to determine whether a sport is of Olympic caliber: Does winning a gold medal trump anything else an athlete can do?

Is there anyone else who thinks this is total B.S.? If we limited the Olympics to sports where a gold medal was the pinnacle of the sport, the Olympics would last three days, be shown on Versus, and get ratings worse than the WNBA (which may not be a bad thing).

Examples are numerous. The gold medal isn't the pinnacle in a ton Olympic sports. Basketball, Hockey, Boxing, Alpine Skiing... Most NHLers would rather have a Stanley Cup. Skiing has an entire season during which the Olympics is just another event. Sure, Americans only watch the Olympics, so that's all we care about, but a World Cup title in skiing is more prestigious. Do you think a boxer would rather have a gold medal or a world championship? Soccer has been an Olympic sport for 100 years, but you think there's a player on earth who would value a gold medal more than a World Cup championship? Champions League is probably more prestigious too. Harig's view strikes me as incredibly myopic.

Please, please, no Olympics in Chicago...

We also have the first major leaguer in quite some time who was raised in Europe now in Rick Vandenhurk.

A lot of people don't realize this. And it's the media's fault, for not referring to him as "Henricus Vandenhurk".

Please, please, no Olympics in Chicago...

Why not? Take two weeks off, rent out your house and get out of town...profit.

I bet we see a few South African major leaguers in the next 10 years

Are there any South African minor leaguers at all right now? I think the Royals had a few South Africans a few years ago and they couldn't get past AA.

I'm really rooting for Rio to get it. South America has never hosted, correct? I think Rio needs the Olympics more than those other cities. It wasn't that long ago that the U.S. and Spain hosted.

Are there any South African minor leaguers at all right now? I think the Royals had a few South Africans a few years ago and they couldn't get past AA.

I'm not sure. I've run across a few South African ballplayers in England, and they really play the game the right way. Obviously, most of the best athletes there are playing rugby and cricket, and I'm not saying it will ever be another DR or Venezuela, but another Australia wouldn't be out of the question.

Allard Baird used to be obsessed with South Africa.

I'm really rooting for Rio to get it. South America has never hosted, correct?

Correct. Mexico City hosted it once, though. I assume that's the poorest country to have hosted the Olympics. Except maybe Greece, or Sweden 90 years ago. Or Belgium directly after World War I.

I'm really rooting for Rio to get it. South America has never hosted, correct?

Correct, but I can think of 3-4 South American cities more appropriate than Rio. Rio is a shitehole. For all the badmouthing that Mexico City is getting in the expansion thread, Rio is worse.

According to Wikipedia the only South African players to get to AA have been Tim Harrell with the Dodgers, and Barry Armitage with the Royals. I have no way of confirming this.

According to Wikipedia the only South African players to get to AA have been Tim Harrell with the Dodgers, and Barry Armitage with the Royals. I have no way of confirming this.

You can check Baseball reference, they have birthplaces listed. No South Africa.

Birth places

My criteria of an Olympic sport is twofold:

Is it played at any adult organized level on 5 or more of the six inhabited continents? (Baseball is on all continents)

Is the sport conducive to the time limit the olympics? (You couldn't play the form of Cricket that lasts days on end, for example.)

Can both genders play it OR, barring that, does it have a very similar game that is often played by the opposite sex (Baseball/Softball)? (Only Boxing, which I believe they are going to change, and Ski-Jumping in the winter olympics, due to Chauvinism that is so bad apparently the Canadian Government is going to get involved, are men-only, to the best of my knowledge)?


Under these, Baseball would be in. So would Golf, if done right.

Olympic baseball is dead to me, thanks to that stupid-ass extra innings rule. If I wanted to watch an event that contained a baseball-like substance, but was markedly inferior due to rules-meddling, the AL stages a bunch every day.

(Only Boxing, which I believe they are going to change, and Ski-Jumping in the winter olympics, due to Chauvinism that is so bad apparently the Canadian Government is going to get involved, are men-only, to the best of my knowledge)?

Bobsled.

edit: 4 man (person) version. And doubles luge.

A lot of people don't realize this. And it's the media's fault, for not referring to him as "Henricus Vandenhurk".

Pat Hughes let everyone know his full name.

Bobsled.

...is now co-ed.

"So would Golf, if done right."

And if it were a sport.

I guess it's at least as sport-ish as ballroom dancing, though.

Olympic baseball is dead to me, thanks to that stupid-ass extra innings rule. If I wanted to watch an event that contained a baseball-like substance, but was markedly inferior due to rules-meddling, the AL stages a bunch every day.

Given the near universal hatred that the managers and others have been giving it, I'm guessing that unless if the IOC says something to the effect of "Baseball will only be in the Olympics if this rule is in place", this will end up being a one-time deal.


A friend of mine once said that the definition of a sport is "If you can do it and do it well with a cigar in your mouth, it's not a sport".

Does UL Washington's toothpick count?

Only if he was smoking with it.

Why not? Take two weeks off, rent out your house and get out of town...profit.

That's my plan.

Not being a basketball fan, and having absolutely ZERO interest in individual sports -- baseball and hockey are the only two Olympic sports I watch. I suppose I generally watch a couple Olympic soccer matches, but I find the Olympics utterly tedious in general.

What's the point of sports that you can't run a decent fantasy/rotisserie game with?

But Watson also made it clear that the Olympics will never feature Major League Baseball stars because the 30-team US league will not shut down its April-September season so top talent can attend the Games.

“The bottom line is we’re not shutting down the season,” Watson said. “Our owners are not going to shut down the season. We’re not going for that.”

Which means no more baseball in the Olympics, ever. Thanks, Bob.

Olympic baseball already has several problems. Playing baseball (and softball) requires building large stadia that can't really be used for anything else, and of course it's still perceived as an American sport, which sends the Euro politicians on the IOC into a lather.

And even if you overcome these problems, well, you heard Bob: no MLB stars in the Olympics. I don't know how you would do it, actually: shorten the season? Regular season starts in March and/or a World Series in November? Doubleheaders? Have the teams play for two weeks without their key players? No, no, no and hell no, respectively.

I'm a little surprised owners allowed the WBC: the minute Jeter sprains his big toe against Chinese Taipei, that's the end of that.

(Only Boxing, which I believe they are going to change, and Ski-Jumping in the winter olympics, due to Chauvinism that is so bad apparently the Canadian Government is going to get involved, are men-only, to the best of my knowledge)?

Nothing like women's boxing to prove that women might actually be as stupid as men.

To echo the old graffiti scribbling, baseball without the Olympics is like a fish without a bicycle. There's more real sport in female jello wrestling than there is in the entire Olympics farce put together. But what else would you expect from an alliance of the world's biggest corporations and the world's most anally retentive government?

But what else would you expect from an alliance of the world's biggest corporations and the world's most anally retentive government?

MLB?

If the Games are held in the Southern Hemisphere (Rio, for example), they will likely be held in January - and in that case, baseball COULD make an appearance with major league players.

-- MWE

There's more real sport in female jello wrestling than there is in the entire Olympics farce put together. But what else would you expect from an alliance of the world's biggest corporations and the world's most anally retentive government?

Yes, of course.

Just because the host government is an authoritarian regime that likes to throw it's weight around and is using the event as a propaganda opportunity, and because the event is sponsored by big corporations, there is no sport involved.

Just ignore the athletes who sacrifice years of their lives to compete in the event. Just pretend that the men and women who often sacrifice personal relationships, relationships with friends / family, job advancement opportunities to compete in the event, don't exist. The men and women who train so hard that they go to bed exhausted and in pain, and get up still exhausted and in pain, don't exist.

But what else would you expect from an alliance of the world's biggest corporations and the world's most anally retentive government?

MLB?

When the World Series stretches its opening ceremonies from 7:30 to midnight, I'll believe that. This has about as much to do with "sport" as a 1968 May Day parade in Moscow.

If the Games are held in the Southern Hemisphere (Rio, for example), they will likely be held in January - and in that case, baseball COULD make an appearance with major league players.

Sure, if teams don't mind risking their best players for a meaningless set of exhibition games.

OTOH, it won't bother me a bit to see Santana, Lester and Dice-K going out there to win one for their various Gippers. And take Papelbon with you.

Sure, if teams don't mind risking their best players for a meaningless set of exhibition games.

This doesn't seem to be an issue for the NBA or for soccer (and perhaps not the NHL, except I know nothing about the NHL except that that's the sport with ice, so who knows?), so why does it need to be with MLB?

This doesn't seem to be an issue for the NBA or for soccer (and perhaps not the NHL, except I know nothing about the NHL except that that's the sport with ice, so who knows?), so why does it need to be with MLB?

Personally, I suspect it's more a matter of... let's say... primacy -- Hockey is much bigger than the NHL - so I don't think it's nearly as big a deal for the NHL to shut down for the Olympics. Perhaps the same is true for the NBA.

Baseball, however, is about the MLB - that's not a slight to the Japanese, Latin American, or other leagues - facts are facts, Major League baseball is the top of the heap. It's simply the league that all the best players in the world aspire towards. There's also the matter of scheduling -- hockey, basketball, and soccer don't really play the "game every day" schedule that MLB does, so working in a two week break is much, much easier to do.

I can absolutely see why MLB would balk at it -- baseball in the Olympics is something of a quaint diversion.

If MLB >>>>> Olympics baseball, why would MLB disrupt its season - and with the MLB schedule, let's face -- there's just no getting around the fact that it would be a real scheduling hassle -- for the Olympics?

As much I'd very much like to see the very best competing for their nations in an Olympic tournament, I'd very much prefer to see an uninterrupted baseball season.

Just ignore the athletes who sacrifice years of their lives to compete in the event. Just pretend that the men and women who often sacrifice personal relationships, relationships with friends / family, job advancement opportunities to compete in the event, don't exist. The men and women who train so hard that they go to bed exhausted and in pain, and get up still exhausted and in pain, don't exist.

Of course they exist, and of course what I'm saying is hyperbolic, but you have to be honest with yourself and make a clear distinction between two sets of athletes.

---the ones you're talking about, who compete in minor sports, and who compete for the sheer love of sport

---and the ones for whom it's all about marketing

The problem with the Olympics is that it's been completely---as in 100%---taken over by the professional, the commercial, and the corporate ethos. This makes it great for couch potatoes who like this sort of thing, and it makes it great for a handful of jocks who can parlay their medals into a lucrative pro contract (or a more lucrative one), and it makes it even better for the corporations, the networks, and the host governments.

What you're essentially saying is that we should just put up with all the surrounding politics, commercialism, and general bullshlt in order to give a few thousand amateur athletes something to live for every four years.

Which is fair enough, since the unanswerable rejoinder to people like me is "you don't have to watch it." And of course I don't. But I will continue to drop in from time to time to admire the Emperor's New Clothes.

Sure, if teams don't mind risking their best players for a meaningless set of exhibition games.

This doesn't seem to be an issue for the NBA or for soccer (and perhaps not the NHL, except I know nothing about the NHL except that that's the sport with ice, so who knows?), so why does it need to be with MLB?

As I implied above in the part you didn't choose to respond to, it's all fine with me as long as baseball doesn't mandate participation, and as long as the Yankees hold out their own players. If the Mets want to risk blowing out Santana's arm so that Hugo Chavez can wave a big foam finger to the world, that's their choice.

What you're essentially saying is that we should just put up with all the surrounding politics, commercialism, and general bullshlt in order to give a few thousand amateur athletes something to live for every four years.

This is true of life in general. We put up with the bull$hit of run of the mill, annoying, perverse and corrupt every day life in order to enjoy the few moments of true happiness and achievement that most lives have. The idea that you should ignore beautiful moments (real ones, not the Costas-gasping-hallmark kind) because it comes amidst an appalling backdrop of greed and corruption is terrible and will lead, ultimately, to your not enjoying anything.

I mean, MLB has pretty much given over to crass marketing, commercialism and petty politics. That doesn't change the beauty of the game itself.

Perfect is the enemy of the good.

EDIT: And I really don't wish to see baseball in the Olympics.

If MLB >>>>> Olympics baseball, why would MLB disrupt its season - and with the MLB schedule, let's face -- there's just no getting around the fact that it would be a real scheduling hassle -- for the Olympics?

You misread my comment; I was talking only about the issue of injury potential, not the issue of interrupting the season. I agree that there's no way in hell MLB would interrupt the season or let the best players miss huge chunks of time in order to play in the Olympics.

As I implied above in the part you didn't choose to respond to, it's all fine with me as long as baseball doesn't mandate participation, and as long as the Yankees hold out their own players. If the Mets want to risk blowing out Santana's arm so that Hugo Chavez can wave a big foam finger to the world, that's their choice.

And you didn't answer my question. I don't care whether it's "fine with you." I was asking why MLB, alone among major sports, would be so worried about injury risk as to forbid players from participating in the Olympics.

EDIT: And I really don't wish to see baseball in the Olympics.

I couldn't give a crap about the Olympics themselves, but it's good for baseball for baseball to be in the Olympics.

A sport being an Olympic sport is what gets the world to care about it. (And when I say "the world," I mean governments that allocate resources, not individual fans.) The more resources allocated to baseball around the world, the more talent developed around the world and the higher the level of the talent pool that MLB ultimately draws from.

What you're essentially saying is that we should just put up with all the surrounding politics, commercialism, and general bullshlt in order to give a few thousand amateur athletes something to live for every four years.

This is true of life in general. We put up with the bull$hit of run of the mill, annoying, perverse and corrupt every day life in order to enjoy the few moments of true happiness and achievement that most lives have. The idea that you should ignore beautiful moments (real ones, not the Costas-gasping-hallmark kind) because it comes amidst an appalling backdrop of greed and corruption is terrible and will lead, ultimately, to your not enjoying anything.

bunyon, I've somehow managed to live as happy a life as anyone I've known, and amazingly enough, I've managed to do it without watching one minute of the Olympics. Not every realm of the world is engulfed in overcommercialized hype. As I said, it all comes down to "to each his own," but for my part I'd find the Olympics a lot more appealing if it were run by relatively honest showmen like Don King or Vince McMahon, who don't try to disguise their personal goals behind a smogscreen of rhetoric.

And in terms of relatively non-commercialized minor sports, look at golf, just to take an outstanding example. The Masters in particular. Compare the amount of commercial interruption there to what you'll get this week. That's sport at its highest level, and there's no question that it's professional to the core, but there's a big difference, and it comes down to four words: A sense of proportion. On the part of both the producers of the event and its sponsors.

I mean, MLB has pretty much given over to crass marketing, commercialism and petty politics. That doesn't change the beauty of the game itself.

Of course, but it's also a hell of a lot easier to isolate "the game itself" in baseball than it is in a spectacle covered by six different networks with a combination of live events and indeterminately scheduled tape delays.

And you didn't answer my question. I don't care whether it's "fine with you." I was asking why MLB, alone among major sports, would be so worried about injury risk as to forbid players from participating in the Olympics.

To make myself clear, if the Olympics were to be held in the Southern Hemisphere in the middle of the North American Winter, I would not be in favor of MLB forbidding players to participate. But I would be 100% against any MLB decree that players must participate. The consent of both the player and his team should be part of the deal.

And neither I nor 99% of American baseball fans would want to see the regular season disrupted for an exhibition held in August. That would be beyond farcical. Let the NFL be the groundbreaker for something like that.

bunyon, I've somehow managed to live as happy a life as anyone I've known, and amazingly enough, I've managed to do it without watching one minute of the Olympics. Not every realm of the world is engulfed in overcommercialized hype. As I said, it all comes down to "to each his own," but for my part I'd find the Olympics a lot more appealing if it were run by relatively honest showmen like Don King or Vince McMahon, who don't try to disguise their personal goals behind a smogscreen of rhetoric.

I agree. Especially the anti-PED stuff.

Touche.

Andy, didn't mean to imply you weren't happy nor that you should watch the Olympics. It's just that to say that it isn't sport because it's overcommercialized is simply wrong.

Also, I think what you're mostly objecting to - and I understand why - is how the Olympics are broadcast in the US. If you can, try to watch Canadian coverage (the only other country I have experience with). It is very, very clearly a sporting event and is covered like a sporting event. NBC has, historically, covered it like it's a soap opera. Naively, I have hopes that the off-channel broadcast will be better this year (the non-prime time, non NBC flagship station broadcast, I mean).

And I also disagree with how easy it is to separate the game of baseball from MLB commercialism. Broadcasts are non-stop commerical and/or ######## about the modern game re: the old game. When you're at the park it's loud and there are oodles of distractions. Yes, I can focus on the game. I can mute the TV. But it takes effort. MLB's approach hasn't, yet, pushed me away from their sport but they have shown me, clearly, that I don't NEED the game. I can't, for example, watch two games in a day - I get sick of the crap around it. I can't watch five games in a week. Some of that is a busier life than I had when I was 15 (or 20 or 25), but not all of it.

I agree with you completely that it is to each his own, but I think MLB is generally on the same trending path that the Olympics have followed. It may make them a lot of money, but that path isn't for me.

I also agree completely that I don't want to ever see MLB athletes forced to compete in international competition (or forbidden to) nor do I want to see any interruption in the MLB schedule. If that prevents other nations from developing a baseball program, so be it. I have no need to ever expand the baseball talent pool.

Also, I think what you're mostly objecting to - and I understand why - is how the Olympics are broadcast in the US.

This is true, since this is all I have to go by.

If you can, try to watch Canadian coverage (the only other country I have experience with). It is very, very clearly a sporting event and is covered like a sporting event.

Unfortunately, I can't get the CBC on DTV. But it's nice to know that they don't follow the godawful US model of coverage.

As for baseball, the extraneous intrusions come in two forms: At the park, and on TV.

At the park, it's much worse, and of course it's magnified by the cost and the hassle. There's absolutely no comparison between the fan experience of even 20 years ago and the fan experience of today. The 1988 (and earlier) fan experience was infintely superior in all respects other than cuisine. I doubt if you'd find many hardcore baseball fans who attended both versions who'd disagree with that sentiment.

On TV, I don't see much problem at all, other than the length of many of the games. But then maybe the YES network is better than most, and I don't watch many games on ESPN unless the Yanks or Red Sox are playing. During inning breaks I just mute the sound, walk five steps down, and practice pool for a few minutes. So the commercials are a complete non-factor

And the very fact that MLB is basically telling the Olympics to shove it is a good sign in itself. Just keep Peter Uberroth from returning to the Commissioner's chair before he croaks and it'll probably be OK.

Andy, I'm disappointed to learn taht you can't play pool and watch DTV at the same time. :)

I really miss the CBC coverage of the Olympics. It may have changed (I saw the 96 games) but it was awesome. They covered the Canadian athletes well but showed many sports where no Canadian even competed. To be fair, the last winter games had really good coverage on MSNBC. They had the "minor" sports and made an effort to explain how the sport worked, what the sport was like outside the Olympics and tended to show entire events without much interruption. There was a bit of personal stuff, but really just enough to give you a sense of who these people were, since none of them could make a living at their sport.

I'm ragging baseball pretty hard and it isn't my intention. I just don't like to think what the broadcasts will be like 20 years from now.

At the park, it's much worse, and of course it's magnified by the cost and the hassle. There's absolutely no comparison between the fan experience of even 20 years ago and the fan experience of today. The 1988 (and earlier) fan experience was infintely superior in all respects other than cuisine. I doubt if you'd find many hardcore baseball fans who attended both versions who'd disagree with that sentiment.

No, there are lots of superior aspects of today's experience, all boiling down to customer service. The parks are nicer, with nicer amenities. Seats are more comfortable and aren't obstructed view. Yes, food.

The only real disadvantages about today's experience are (a) baseball's more popular, which means prices are higher (and, relatedly, it's harder to get seats in a great location), and (b) the &(*^#@^$ noise. And by noise I don't mean crowd noise; I mean the stuff blaring over the speakers. Full time. High volume. If only the PA system was limited to announcing the name of the batter coming to the plate or reliever coming into the game, I'd be thrilled.

WBC > Olympic Baseball

Andy, I'm disappointed to learn taht you can't play pool and watch DTV at the same time. :)...

I'm ragging baseball pretty hard and it isn't my intention. I just don't like to think what the broadcasts will be like 20 years from now.

My dream is that baseball on TV will be like some of the World Nine Ball championship tournament on the internet: A $25.00 one-time fee lets you watch the entire week of the tournament, and no commercials. It's a pool junkie's dream.

Now if only they could move the Philippines into the Eastern U.S. time zone....

No, there are lots of superior aspects of today's experience, all boiling down to customer service. The parks are nicer, with nicer amenities. Seats are more comfortable and aren't obstructed view. Yes, food.

The only real disadvantages about today's experience are (a) baseball's more popular, which means prices are higher (and, relatedly, it's harder to get seats in a great location), and (b) the &(*^#@^$ noise. And by noise I don't mean crowd noise; I mean the stuff blaring over the speakers. Full time. High volume. If only the PA system was limited to announcing the name of the batter coming to the plate or reliever coming into the game, I'd be thrilled.

Andy:

I'm in agreement with DMN and not really sure what you mean. Generally, especially compared to 20 years ago, I think fans are better behaved (maybe 40 years ago they were still better), the parks are nicer, the bathrooms nicer, the food nicer, the views as good or better in the newer parks, and the game pretty much the same. What are you pointing to?

At the park, it's much worse, and of course it's magnified by the cost and the hassle. There's absolutely no comparison between the fan experience of even 20 years ago and the fan experience of today. The 1988 (and earlier) fan experience was infintely superior in all respects other than cuisine. I doubt if you'd find many hardcore baseball fans who attended both versions who'd disagree with that sentiment.

No, there are lots of superior aspects of today's experience, all boiling down to customer service. The parks are nicer, with nicer amenities. Seats are more comfortable

True.

and aren't obstructed view.

Neither were 98% of the seats in older parks. And they were a lot closer to the field.

The only real disadvantages about today's experience are (a) baseball's more popular, which means prices are higher (and, relatedly, it's harder to get seats in a great location),

As if I didn't know the reasons. But that doesn't make the problems go away, and they're real. And don't forget the related cost of transportation, especially if you have to drive to stadiums that don't have nearby street spaces.

and (b) the &(*^#@^$ noise. And by noise I don't mean crowd noise; I mean the stuff blaring over the speakers. Full time. High volume. If only the PA system was limited to announcing the name of the batter coming to the plate or reliever coming into the game, I'd be thrilled.

You and me both. That's the part of Don King and Vince McMahon I could live without.

Andy:

I'm in agreement with DMN and not really sure what you mean. Generally, especially compared to 20 years ago, I think fans are better behaved (maybe 40 years ago they were still better), the parks are nicer, the bathrooms nicer, the food nicer, the views as good or better in the newer parks, and the game pretty much the same. What are you pointing to?

JC, perhaps I should have limited the comparison to the older parks, where the tradeoff was 2% obstructed view seats vs. the entire upper deck that was much closer to home plate, especially within the baselines. The cantilevering cured the 2% problem but substituted the 50% problem. This was compounded by the reassignation of the "unreserved" sections to the nether reaches of the park, often to the outfield upper deck, and sometimes eliminating them altogether. Trust me, if you'd been around then, you'd agree with my assessment.

And while the seats and the bathrooms are a big improvement, and the food is much better, this still can't make up for the fact that a person who wants to get a good seat close to the action these days is paying (in real dollar terms) from three to a hundred times the amount he was when I was well past my 21st birthday. Not to mention the transportation and parking cost differences in many parks.

I know the reasons for this. But they don't change the facts.

EDIT: One very small example: Those $150 seats in Nationals Park cost between $1.50 and $2.50 in Griffith Stadium, or $10.72 to $17.86 in today's dollars.

I agree that MLB will not allow the regular season schedule to be disrupted - that is, unless there is sufficient money in it for them, which I can't see happening. However, if the Olympics are scheduled in MLB's offseason - and don't forget, in the Southern Hemisphere summer runs December-February - then I think there is a reasonable chance that MLB players will be released to compete in the Olympics. After all, we have the World Baseball Classic, an Olympic-type competition, which runs in that time frame now.

-- MWE

Of course they exist, and of course what I'm saying is hyperbolic, but you have to be honest with yourself and make a clear distinction between two sets of athletes.

---the ones you're talking about, who compete in minor sports, and who compete for the sheer love of sport

---and the ones for whom it's all about marketing

The problem with the Olympics is that it's been completely---as in 100%---taken over by the professional, the commercial, and the corporate ethos. This makes it great for couch potatoes who like this sort of thing, and it makes it great for a handful of jocks who can parlay their medals into a lucrative pro contract (or a more lucrative one), and it makes it even better for the corporations, the networks, and the host governments.

What you're essentially saying is that we should just put up with all the surrounding politics, commercialism, and general bullshlt in order to give a few thousand amateur athletes something to live for every four years.

Which is fair enough, since the unanswerable rejoinder to people like me is "you don't have to watch it." And of course I don't. But I will continue to drop in from time to time to admire the Emperor's New Clothes.

What about MLB? The NFL? The NBA? European soccer? You compare the opening ceremony, to the WS, but the WS is held every year, not once every 4 years.

How about we look at other fields. Music. Forget pop. Look at the most "elitist" of the musical genres: classical. It's as much "professional" as any sport. Hell, the crappy and awful Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang, sometimes derogatorily referred to as Bang Bang by pianophiles, even performed at the opening ceremony.

The professionalism of sport is a reality. Whether people like it or not. It is not possible to achieve the levels of performance that elite athletes achieve, as an amateur, without being a trust fund baby. If you want amateurism, then, you have to accept (much) reduced levels of performance.

Furthermore, you're setting up a false dichotomy there, by separating those who just love the sport, and those for whom it's all about the marketing. The reality in modern sports is that it's not possible to compete at these levels without turning training into a full time job. A very physically painful and demanding full time job. Just because an athlete loves his / her sport doesn't mean that he / she doesn't expect to derive some financial reward out of it.

Also, what is your definition of a minor sport? Is Track and Field a minor sport? It's a major olympic sport. In 2005, Adam Nelson, 2 time olympic silver medalist in the discus, was so broke that he was going to quit. In the end, he auctioned himself off on Ebay. In return for money for training, he would help market his sponsor. He finally won a gold in a major championship in the 2005 WC. Go back to the days of amateurism, and he would have been banned.

And let's say a handful of jocks do get rich off their performances in the olympics. So what? Given how ####### hard they had to work to win there, why shouldn't they be rewarded?

No, I'm not saying that we should put up with the propagandistic crap, the politics, etc. You can choose to ignore the opening ceremony. You can make fun of the Chinese exercise in propaganda. You can point out that the Chinese put their athletes through brutal training regimes. With even reports of physical beatings of children.

None of that changes the fact that thousands of athletes make tremendous sacrifices to compete there.

Well argued, rfloh. As I said, it's all a matter of preference. And I certainly don't intend to diminish the great majority of athletes who have few if any other realistic venues for breaking through the fog of inattention and advancing their careers. More power to them.

Baseball, however, is about the MLB - that's not a slight to the Japanese, Latin American, or other leagues - facts are facts, Major League baseball is the top of the heap. It's simply the league that all the best players in the world aspire towards

That is true of the NBA too. And olympic soccer is minor compared to the World Cup, or even the club competitions in Europe an SA.

In fact, in olympic soccer, many top players don't participate, because FIFA, the soccer governing body, only allows teams to field 3 players over the age of 23 in their squads. Everyone else must be under 23.

Evan if they award it to a southern hemesphere city, there is little to no chance of the Olympics being held during baseballs offseason. I believe Sydney 2000 was in september. They are not going to bend over backwards to try and fit in with MLBs schedule, nor should they.

And evan on the off chance that one of the Olympics was held during the baseball offseason, it's still not really a solution to the problem. Youd just run into the same dilemma the following Games...

This doesn't seem to be an issue for the NBA or for soccer (and perhaps not the NHL, except I know nothing about the NHL except that that's the sport with ice, so who knows?), so why does it need to be with MLB?

Soccer is played once a week, and the summertime is the off-season for most leagues. Summer is also the off-season for the NBA (the WNBA took a month-long Olympic break, not that anyone noticed). Hockey is played three of four times a week, which causes a two-week break to tighten up the NHL schedule a bit, but it's doable.

Baseball is played every day. Every single day (almost). A two-week break means you have to reschedule 12-13 games, or nearly one-tenth of the season, which already stretches seven months (eight, including spring training games). One possible option could be to give the big baseball nations (US, Japan, Cuba, Venezuela maybe) a bye into the medal round with everybody else playing a preliminary round (this is what they do in hockey) so the majority of the MLB players only have to be away for one week. Even then, of course, there's always the chance somebody's multimillion-dollar player will get hurt playing a "meaningless" game.

However, if the Olympics are scheduled in MLB's offseason - and don't forget, in the Southern Hemisphere summer runs December-February - then I think there is a reasonable chance that MLB players will be released to compete in the Olympics.

Crazy at it sounds, this could actually work. The next Winter Olympics (2010) are being held in Vancouver, which just happens to have a baseball-sized indoor stadium. Most WO venues won't, of course (Sochi, Russia, anyone?), so the IOC would have to award the baseball portion of the Winter Olympics elsewhere. (And there would be precent for that, too: the equestrian events of 1956 couldn't be held in Melbourne due to a horse quarantine, so they were moved to Sweden.)

Indeed. I don't know how anyone watches to opening and closing ceremonies. But, then, I don't watch pregame shows for other sports, either.

Soccer is played once a week, and the summertime is the off-season for most leagues. Summer is also the off-season for the NBA (the WNBA took a month-long Olympic break, not that anyone noticed). Hockey is played three of four times a week, which causes a two-week break to tighten up the NHL schedule a bit, but it's doable.

Baseball is played every day. Every single day (almost). A two-week break means you have to reschedule 12-13 games, or nearly one-tenth of the season, which already stretches seven months (eight, including spring training games).

I guess I wasn't clear, because you're the second one to misinterpret my statement this way. I was referring only to the injury issue, not to the scheduling issue.

and (b) the &(*^#@^$ noise. And by noise I don't mean crowd noise; I mean the stuff blaring over the speakers. Full time. High volume. If only the PA system was limited to announcing the name of the batter coming to the plate or reliever coming into the game, I'd be thrilled.

Agreed.

What's funny is that John Sterling in the past has gone on and on at Tampa Bay games about the noise, doing his whole "I guess their team can't play baseball, so they have to entertain the crowd some other way" schtick. I confess never having watched a home Devil Rays game, but I have watched plenty of games at Yankee Stadium, and the noise there can get unbearable - so I wonder what Sterling is talking about. Maybe it's worse at Tampa Bay games (?), but it's not like Yankee Stadium shuts off its PA system.

My experience is a few years out of date, but the noise at Yankee stadium is much, much worse than at the Trop. I really enjoyed the game I saw in Tampa. Of course, there were only like 15 people there.