Baseball is a well defined, complex sport that is played all over the world. Why was it taken out of the games when there are quasi sports like air rifle that are in still in?
And it’s going to be replaced by golf and rugby seven in 2016!
This was taken from Wikipedia:
This decision was reaffirmed on February 9, 2006. In the stands during the 2008 bronze medal game between the U.S. and Japan, IOC head Jacques Rogge was interviewed by MLB.com’s Mark Newman and cited various criteria for Baseball to earn its way back in: “To be on the Olympic program is an issue where you need universality as much as possible. You need to have a sport with a following, you need to have the best players and you need to be in strict compliance with WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency). And these are the qualifications that have to be met. When you have all that, you have to win hearts. You can win the mind, but you still must win hearts.”[3] It was officially decided in August 2009 at the IOC Board meeting in Berlin that baseball would also not be included in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Baseball meets these qualification. Seems to be another case of corruption in the Olympics…
I want some old sports brought back to the olympics. Tug of war, poetry, the plunge etc. Simply bad sport not to include them these days.
Surprised to see that in a nation of however many million million Pakistan only have 20 or so athletes at the games.
I doubt a lot of teams can put together what it takes to make an olympic sport. In archery you only need a few fat geezers and a South Korean coach and you are off and running. Baseball you need however many for the team, plus the stadium and a league to support it. Otherwise it will just be 3 teams really competing.
Our boys took a hell of a whipping in the peloton yesterday. Boo.
It seems like the game requires too much skill and the Europeans/Chinese weren’t able to build up a program quick enough so they threw their weight around Seriously, if international footprint is an issue, air rifle, which doesn’t seem to take much beyond repetitive practice and is something hardly anyone cares about, should be out…
[quote=“superking”]I want some old sports brought back to the olympics. Tug of war, poetry, the plunge etc. Simply bad sport not to include them these days.
Surprised to see that in a nation of however many million million Pakistan only have 20 or so athletes at the games.
I doubt a lot of teams can put together what it takes to make an olympic sport. In archery you only need a few fat geezers and a South Korean coach and you are off and running. Baseball you need however many for the team, plus the stadium and a league to support it. Otherwise it will just be 3 teams really competing.
Our boys took a hell of a whipping in the peloton yesterday. Boo.[/quote]
Exactly, so basketball should be taken out, too, and the Olympics should be limited to ‘‘sports’’ that don’t take much, like rubber band shooting…
And using that logic, golf shouldn’t be an Olympic sport: it requires courses (money) and complex training, which will isolate pretty much all of South America and Africa, I think.
It seems like the game requires too much skill.[/quote]
Oh dearie, dearie me.
So, you like baseball and that’s all you’re good at? Baseball was withdrawn partly because the pro teams in America refused to allow their players to take part, be they US citizens who would have played for the USA team, or foreign stars like Ichiro. And so baseball was pulled, not because of a lack of international footprint (plenty of low participation games like that in the Olympics still, like handball and curling) but because the Olympics interferes with the season of professional baseball in the USA.
Blame the game in the States for the demise of Olympic baseball.
It seems like the game requires too much skill.[/quote]
Oh dearie, dearie me.
So, you like baseball and that’s all you’re good at? Baseball was withdrawn partly because the pro teams in America refused to allow their players to take part, be they US citizens who would have played for the USA team, or foreign stars like Ichiro. And so baseball was pulled, not because of a lack of international footprint (plenty of low participation games like that in the Olympics still, like handball and curling) but because the Olympics interferes with the season of professional baseball in the USA.
Blame the game in the States for the demise of Olympic baseball.[/quote]
Exactly, so basketball should be taken out, too, and the Olympics should be limited to ‘‘sports’’ that don’t take much, like rubber band shooting… [/quote]
I am fricking AWESOME at rubber band flicking!
The olympics should be for amateur sports people. Footy, tennis etc where the pro’s turn up… all part of the revenues streaming of the whole thing. I want to see crochet, the rope climb, speed walking (or is that still kosher?), underwater obstacle course etc. Stuff where you have to be a bit bonkers and train in your own time to do these things. Nobody gives me a gold medal for being f*cking awesome at going to work, so why should they get them?
[quote=“urodacus”]So, you like baseball and that’s all you’re good at? Baseball was withdrawn partly because the pro teams in America refused to allow their players to take part, be they US citizens who would have played for the USA team, or foreign stars like Ichiro. And so baseball was pulled, not because of a lack of international footprint (plenty of low participation games like that in the Olympics still, like handball and curling) but because the Olympics interferes with the season of professional baseball in the USA.
Blame the game in the States for the demise of Olympic baseball.[/quote]
I thought the Olympics was for amateur sports, and professional athletes weren’t allowed to take part. Or is that a philosophy that disappeared long ago before the IOC became such a litigious, corporate-controlled body?
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“urodacus”]So, you like baseball and that’s all you’re good at? Baseball was withdrawn partly because the pro teams in America refused to allow their players to take part, be they US citizens who would have played for the USA team, or foreign stars like Ichiro. And so baseball was pulled, not because of a lack of international footprint (plenty of low participation games like that in the Olympics still, like handball and curling) but because the Olympics interferes with the season of professional baseball in the USA.
Blame the game in the States for the demise of Olympic baseball.[/quote]
I thought the Olympics was for amateur sports, and professional athletes weren’t allowed to take part. Or is that a philosophy that disappeared long ago before the IOC became such a litigious, corporate-controlled body?[/quote]
I imagine the lines are blurred these days, Chris. Jessica Ennis… is she a pro or an amateur being paid like a pro? When I were a lad these athletes earned practically enough to keep them fed and nothing more. Usain Bolt anyone? I’m pretty sure that dude earns more money than me for running up and down a piece of dirt all day long. Mens footy and both genders of tennis are deffo only pro athletes. I’m under the impression Andy Murray gets paid a truck load of cash just for waking up each day. So he isn’t getting paid for this? Oh boo. I’m sure wiping your tears on more money than most people will see in a lifetime will help in the recovery. They should all be banned from the Olympics. it should be for people who give their life over to excellence for the sake of excellence and nothing more. But of course, I am a dreamer.
People have come to view the athletes that participate in the Olympics as the best of the best. Would you rather watch Lebron, Kobe and Durant lighting it up or a bunch of no name college freshmen? That’s why amateurs are out and pros are in. As for baseball, it conflicts with MLB so there wasn’t much interest in watching a bunch of minor leaguers playing.
The ban on professionals did exist up to the 1980s but has long since been dropped. Most cyclists, tennis players, footballers, etc are professionals. Even track and field stars are paid these days.
Baseball should be made an Olympic event. As it is basically a boring over-extended version of rounders, which is a game for girls. Except, according to American convention, the men get to wear pads!
I love it when Euros take shots at American masculinity. :roflmao: Ohhhhh the irony!
Truth be told the IOC is a Eurocentric cartel whose primary responsibility is to manage the damage done to delicate European sensibilities every leap year, so they fill the games up with as many sports as possible that they can dominate (though this number is dwindling, especially with those pesky Chinese).
Take a useless abortion of a sport like team handball for example where 14 of the top 15 teams are European, yet somehow baseball, with countries like Cuba, Japan and Venezuela amongst the world’s best is the one that lacks an international footprint.
It is all a steaming pile of Eurotrash horseshit, it is the same reason Jacques Rogge was named IOC president instead of Dick Pound. Keep it Euro! Why do you think all the sports federations are based in Europe and use Francais as their lingua franca? So they can maintain some sort of control since their washed up, broke ass, tired excuse for a continent has so much trouble doing so. Thank God for ze futbol!!! A REAL sport, where grown European men can flop around like a lil bitch when someone brushes against their shin. Europe is still the king of that sport (shut up Brazil and Argentina!!!).
Bottom line is the Continentals are tired of getting their asses kicked by the Americans, Chinese etc… and haven’t fielded a decent challenger since the iron curtain fell and all their great doping labs wen kaput. Why do you think Rugby Union took so long to finally become a sport? Didn’t want to give the Aussies another medal (“Eeeats not fair I tellz you, they wins too many medalz in ze pool, thosez damn Oztrayleeans!”).
Olympics good, IOC a joke, just another international federation completely ruined by European mismanagement (see Sepp Blatter, FIFA).
[quote=“superking”]I want some old sports brought back to the olympics. Tug of war, poetry, the plunge etc. Simply bad sport not to include them these days.
Surprised to see that in a nation of however many million million Pakistan only have 20 or so athletes at the games.
I doubt a lot of teams can put together what it takes to make an olympic sport. In archery you only need a few fat geezers and a South Korean coach and you are off and running. Baseball you need however many for the team, plus the stadium and a league to support it. Otherwise it will just be 3 teams really competing.
Our boys took a hell of a whipping in the peloton yesterday. Boo.[/quote]
There is nothing stopping people putting together alternatives to the olympics. The olympics, with its over jingoistic tone and corporate sponsporship can turn me off sometimes. They are a very corrupt organization, too much money involved you see
My pet hate, they don’t give away free tickets if the stadiums are half empty.
I am a baseball fanatic, has been all my life. It pains me to see baseball out of the Olympics this year and probably for ever.
The IOC claims several things:
Baseball is not international enough. hmm, Most of the Americas both north and south plays it. More and more European nations play it. East Asia is crazy for it. And when is air rifle internationally popular?
Olympic Baseball games doesn’t make enough money from the tickets or broadcasting. I have a hard time believing this. Even if people from the US for some reason don’t watch Olympic baseball, the combined broadcasting fee from Japan Taiwan and Korea isn’t enough to justify having baseball as an event? Who the heck watches sports like white water rafting anyway?
I think the real problem with baseball as an Olympic sport… many host countries like England doesn’t want to build a baseball stadium, because baseball stadiums aren’t very cheap to build. (though I don’t think white water rafting centers aren’t that cheap to build either).
In the end, I think England didn’t want to build a baseball stadium and they wanted sports like Rugby and golf in, but IOC meetings are games of politics, and UK couldn’t get those in this time, but they got those events in for the next Olympics, and in the process, they got rid of baseball and saved money from building yet another stadium.
Seriously, if international footprint is an issue, air rifle, which doesn’t seem to take much beyond repetitive practice and is something hardly anyone cares about, should be out…