"Let us go forth a while, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms...
The game of ball is glorious."

--Walt Whitman

Friday, July 08, 2005

Baseball, Softball Tossed From London Games

Baseball, softball tossed from London Games:
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - London will stage a reduced Olympic Games in 2012 after baseball and softball were wiped from the program in a controversial vote on Friday.
London's showpiece will now feature 26 sports rather than 28 after International Olympic Committee (IOC) members rejected proposals to replace the axed sports with two from rugby sevens, golf, squash, karate and roller sports.
Baseball and softball failed to win a majority of votes in a ballot of members at the IOC Session at the Raffles complex and became the first sports to be cut from the Games since polo in 1936.
In a farcical display of bureaucracy, IOC members went through seven rounds of voting to decide which two of the five would-be Olympic sports should be put up for a vote to give them Olympic status.
Having selected squash and karate, the members then overwhelmingly rejected their bids to join the Olympic program.
The last Olympics to be staged with just 26 sports was Atlanta in 1996. The minimum number of sports required for an Olympic Games is 15, while the maximum is 28.
'Today was a decision to put quality over quantity,' IOC communications director Giselle Davies said.

No baseball in the Summer Olympics. I don't believe it. That's the only damn thing I watched! (Not that they televised it often, mind you, and then usually in the middle of the night. But that's what VCRs are for, right?)

For your edification, here are the sports the IOC, in its infinite wisdom, considers of higher quality than baseball:

Aquatics
Archery
Athletics
Badminton
Basketball
Boxing
Canoe/kayak
Cycling
Equestrian
Fencing
Football (Soccer)
Gymnastics
Handball
Hockey
Judo
Modern Pentathlon
Rowing
Sailing
Shooting
Table Tennis
Taekwondo
Tennis
Triathlon
Volleyball
Weightlifting
Wrestling

Handball? HANDBALL?!?! This is more important than baseball? What the hell is "Modern Pentathalon"? Who decided that basketball, a sorry excuse for a sport if there ever was one, has more value than the "great and glorious game"? What the hell is hockey doing in the Summer Olympics? And don't even get me started on table tennis...

3 rejoinders:

Fourth pew, center sounded off...

I can live with handball. I can live with the 'modern' pentathlon. But the very concept of table tennis as an Olympic sport -- *gag*. And don't even let me start on synchronized swimming . . .

frightwig sounded off...

It's probably a knock against the Americans, given that only a handful of nations are any good at baseball and softball, and none are in Europe. The IOC probably has a dim view of baseball right now because of the drug issue, too.

I'd guess they want to have golf for the London Games, and maybe rugby, too. If the 2016 Games are in the Americas or Asia, I'd expect to see at least baseball come back.

frightwig sounded off...

Oh, and I suppose that "hockey" must be field hockey rather than ice hockey. Just a guess.