I.O.C. Drops Softball, Baseball From Olympics
- July 09, 2005
- 2 comments
Apparently, the French president of the International Olympic Committee didn’t like that the US women’s softball team dominated all others in the last Olympics. So he conducted a secret vote in Singapore and has dropped softball and baseball from the Olympics.
How freaking lame is that? You’re punishing a team for being too good. But you’re not just punishing the American women softball team, you’re slapping the face of every softball and baseball player around the world who wanted to play at the Olympics. Americans aren’t the only ones who play these sports. In fact, Japan and Cuba have just as good, if not better, men’s baseball teams, in my opinion.
Just like the NYTimes article said, you didn’t see the Olympic committee banning basketball after the first couple of Dream Teams spanked their competition. What you did see was the rest of the world picking up their basketball games and introducing basketball to a whole lot of new fans and players. The last “Dream Team” sucked donkeys, but the rest of the world’s basketball teams have also greatly improved. Now because some Frenchman got his panties in a wad, the sports of softball and baseball have now been dealt a major setback in being adopted by other countries.
The United States Olympic Committee can appeal the decision, and should. This is just ridiculous.
In another article, Jacques Rogge gives some reasons why baseball was dropped. He said they’re not sending their best athletes to compete and that their dope testing is below the standard of other Olympic sports. I can see his reasoning here, but I still can’t for softball. His reasoning there is that it doesn’t have enough global appeal. Whatever. How will it ever get global appeal without being part of the Olympics? Somewhere around 125 countries are affiliated with the International Softball Federation. How much more global does a sport need to be?
baseball and softball should not be in the olympics. they never should have been. it’s not that the olympic committee is ‘punishing’ the u.s. team because they dominated the competition, they had no competition. these ‘sports’ are not global. i’ve lived in a few countries in europe, and no one there plays either. no body even cares that they exist. maybe i’m generalizing too much, but you get the point don’t you. isn’t it enough that there are bout 3984209348029509485 games in the major leagues?! what else do you need. honestly. oh and bout the basketball thing…first of all, there were obviously other winners before the 1992 dream team, the u.s. had plenty of competition, and as you can see, they do again today. yes they do have the most olympic gold medals in basketball, but do you know who has the most gold medals in world championships? yugoslavia, today serbia and montenegro. there you go. done. baseball and softball are out!