You’re Out! (Olympics)

For the Olympic ball players, the Closing Ceremonies marked more than the start of a four-year hiatus.

It was announced last week that baseball and softball would not be included in the 2012 London Games.

At a secret conference in Singapore, the International Olympic Committee voted on the twenty-eight existing Olympic sports, only baseball and softball failed to garner a majority approval.

These are the first sports to be eliminated since polo in 1936. We knew baseball’s days as the American pastime were gone, but to be compared to polo, this is just sad.

But I can see what the IOC is saying about baseball. We see NBA players and NHL players at the Olympics, but we don’t see MLB all-stars.

The Olympic games are intended to showcase the world’s greatest athletes. If participation by the world’s finest is less than unenthusiastic, the sport loses some serious clout.

But I have to disagree with the IOC’s decision to drop softball from the Olympic roster.

The IOC felt that the sport was “too American,” and did not have a global appeal.

Since its arrival on the Olympic scene in 1996, the US women have dominated, triggering some sentiments that softball is controlled too much by one country.

After all, in the 2004 Athens Olympics, the US women outscored opponents 51-1 on the way to their third Olympic title.

But do they want the world’s best or not? It also should be noted that in Beijing, the US team finished as the runner-up to the world champions, Japan.

In an interview with Bob Costas, IOC president Jacques Rogge expressed that softball has suffered due to an unfair affiliation with baseball and with it, doping:

“Outside of the United States and regions where softball is popular, there was this belief that softball was the women’s version of baseball, which is absolutely not the case.”

Wait. I am pretty sure that’s exactly what softball is. In fact, you are just proving it by eliminating softball based on the shortcomings of baseball.

I wonder why Rogge hasn’t made a push for men’s softball or women’s baseball.

I am a little surprised that softball got the boot before a “sport” like racewalking. Racewalking is even more ridiculous than it sounds. But at least it’s ridiculous globally and equally.

Softball and baseball will be eligible for reinstatement in 2016, but they will have to compete for the two open spots against golf, rugby, karate, squash, and . . . ahem . . . roller-skating.

Yes, even roller-skating is challenging the return of softball to the Olympics.

So as of now, it’s safe to say that softball and baseball may be shunned from the Olympic scene for-ev-er, for-ev-er, for-ev-er.

–Gordy Jenkins, RED U.S. Editorial Staff.