Uni Watch: Levin: U.S. Baseball at the Olympics

Morris Engelb—- um, Levin looks at and links to how Mark McGwire, Tommy Lasorda and friends filled out their unis.

In honor of the opening of the Games, and with respect to baseball’s absence from London, let us look at the uniforms worn by U.S. teams at previous Olympiads. (Anybody want to make a t-shirt for Pride Park Stadium, “I Still Call It The Baseball Ground”?)

Baseball was a demonstration tournament in 1984 and 1988, and a medal sport beginning in 1992 at Barcelona. While baseball was exhibited during the meandering five-month St. Louis Games in 1904, we trace the first Olympics baseball game to 1912 in Sweden.

A final note:

I am not going to miss baseball at this year’s London Games. The Olympics’ attraction is sport’s elite athletes. Baseball’s best are playing today, but in cities across the U.S., in Toronto, in Cuba, and Japan. Iranian-Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish will be facing Cuban Dayán Viciedo, Dominican Alejandro De Aza, and Bridgehamptonian A.J. Pierzynski tonight in North Texas. It is for the absence of top professionals that baseball is unlikely to return to the Games. And while the WBC is a nice idea, I want to see MLB’s World Series champion take on the winner of the Asia Series for a true international baseball world championship.