This never gets old

Baseball will not be returning to the Olympics in 2016

I blame MLB for not getting its ass in gear and pushing for it and not figuring out some way to pause the season so the best in the world could compete.

People don't realize how much baseball not being in the Olympics HURTS the sport. Governments fund the Olympic teams. When a particular sport isn't played in the Olympics, the national team of that country gets no funding. When the team that plays a sport that is not very well known, that funding means everything, because what private sector organization is going to want to fund a niche sport? There's no profit in that!

European baseball was starting to make a name for itself. The European Cup will disappear and all of those leagues could disband. This directly affects the World Baseball Classic, too - where do you think the national teams come from?

Of course, whiners will rejoice at the death of international baseball, because they're pitchers "won't get hurt." (Despite there being no evidence of WBC hurting players.) But what it does is further push baseball into the oblivion of nostalgia and makes it become even more irrelevant than it already is these days. American children don't dream of being Major League Baseball players anymore. MLB needs players from other countries to sustain itself.

You watch. Twenty years from now, baseball is going to be screaming "What did we do wrong?"

Very, very disappointing news.

A game for the world

I love this kind of stuff: Baseball pitches diplomats

Not many fans get to go on the field for batting practice the first time they attend a baseball game. Nor do they get to schmooze with players or take away autographed baseballs and other goodies.

But this wasn't your typical collection of first-time fans watching the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates Wednesday night. They were foreign diplomats on the receiving end of a straight pitch: Help bring baseball back to the Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee voted four years ago to drop baseball and softball from the Games starting in 2012. Baseball is among seven sports competing for two openings at the 2016 Games. The International Olympic Committee will decide in October.

Many of the diplomats in attendance Wednesday night had never been to a baseball game. Organizers from the State Department and the International Baseball Federation did their best to both explain and extol the sport.

I don't believe there's any competition here:

...baseball faces several obstacles in getting back on the program. It's got competition from six other sports — softball, golf, rugby sevens, roller speedskating, squash and karate — and some baggage because of doping scandals.

Seriously? Roller speedskating? I think the global (minus American) popularity of the World Baseball Classic proves that baseball belongs in the Olympics.

I like this line:

Several ambassadors said they were on board with making baseball an Olympic sport again.

From a group who is trying to bring back baseball to the Olympics

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUCCESS CONTINUES LEADING INTO SEMI-FINALS OF WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC

Television Ratings, Attendance and Sponsorship Highlight First Two Rounds of 2009 World Baseball Classic

The 2009 World Baseball Classic has been an overwhelming success leading into the Semi-Finals of the tournament. The 36 games that have taken place have resulted in record-breaking television ratings and larger crowds than the inaugural tournament held in 2006. In a World Baseball Classic that promised to build on the excitement of the inaugural tournament, more companies are attracted by the increasing international appeal of baseball sponsorship opportunities.

Television ratings highlights through the first two rounds of the 2009 World Baseball Classic include:

w ESPN has averaged 1.68 million viewers, up 53% from the 1.1 million viewers in 2006

w ESPN registered a 1.3 rating on ESPN, up 30% from a 1.0 rating in 2006

w United States vs. Puerto Rico on March 14 delivered a 3.4 Hispanic rating on ESPN Deportes to become the highest rated World Baseball Classic telecast as well as the highest rated non-soccer event in the network’s history.

w ESPN Deportes has been the most watched ad-supported cable network among Hispanic men (18+) topping all other cable networks regardless of language.

w Japan ’s first Round Two game against Cuba on Sunday, March 15 delivered a 17.9 rating, even though it started at 4:45 a.m. on a Monday morning.

w The first match-up between Japan and Korea earned a rating of 37.8 in Japan – with more than 45 million viewers tuning in nationwide ranking it as the highest rated sporting event of any kind in Japan, surpassing even the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, since the 2006 World Baseball Classic Final between Japan and Cuba (43.4).

w Team Canada ’s television ratings increased 77% in Canada from the viewers that tuned into Canada ’s games in 2006.

The attendance for the 2009 World Baseball Classic has surpassed the 2006 World Baseball Classic to this point by approximately 8% with more than 659,000 fans attending games in 2009.

w Puerto Rico’s Round 2 defeat of the U.S. drew 30,595 to Miami ’s Dolphin Stadium on March 14

w More than 42,500 fans attended the opening two games of Round 2 featuring four foreign teams on March 15 at PETCO Park in San Diego

w The first match-up between Japan and Korea on March 7 was played in front of a sell-out crowd of 45,640 in the Tokyo Dome.

w The Rogers Centre in Toronto held a crowd of 42,314 on March 7 for the United States thrilling victory over Canada .

Fifty-six companies are sponsoring the 2009 World Baseball Classic globally or regionally – more than double the number of partners from the inaugural tournament.

w Partners are activating in 11 countries and territories that are participating in the event.

w Seven partners are activating in multiple regions

w 12 Teams wore patches on their uniform, helmet or both

I don't know why the bullet points turned into Ws, but I'm too lazy to change it right now. This Korean blow out is really quite dull, though it is only the third inning...
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On sport

What is sport?

I've stared at that question for quite awhile. I can hear the reaction of the thoughtless, football-jerseyed ogres saying, "Duh!"

But sport is more than the games played, more than baseball, football, track and field. It's business, too. And politics.

Would you say it's art? Would you say it's science?

When Abner Doubleday (or Alexander Cartwright, depending on which baseball historian you ask) created the game of baseball, with its lines and dimensions and rules and numbers, did he create art? How is creating a game different from creating a painting?

And the science - the angles, wind factors, the Speedo swimsuits, all of that technology, the human body made into a great and glorious machine...no doubt sport is science, too.

God/Allah/Yahweh/Krishna/Buddha/Great Spirit/Insert-other-name-of-god-in-vain, I love the Olympics.

Imagine being a conscript in Napolean's or Tsar Alexander's army or Salahaddin's or King Richard's army and someone tells you that one day, it would not be warriors who are revered but athletes who compete for their countries despite political differences. You couldn't believe it. Envision a solider, call him John, stumbling across the parched deserts of the Holy Land, the stench of body odor permeating the heavy air, his shield adorned with the cross of his god, staring out at certain death in the form of Salahaddin's army with its scintillating scimitars raised under the mideastern sun. Today, John is a sprinter, his muscles as beautiful as a Michaelangelo sculpture, his body well-fed, his wallet heavy, running next to - not at - Ahmed for the glory of his country.

Boy have we made some progress in the world.

But we still have a long way to go.

There is beauty. The Olympic Opening Ceremony was beautiful - incredible - perhaps the best one I have ever seen, maybe the greatest ever. From the drums to the lines of lights to the awe inspiring lighting of the torch, I felt my jaw drop several times. THAT was art.

Then there is bullshit. The Chinese almost fooled us into thinking they weren't an authoritarian regime with gross human rights abuses, a disgusting environment, and rampant poverty (while they spent $300 million on that ceremony alone.) And I hear from some Americans "leave the politics out." That makes me sick. You want to sit there and ignore the suffering of millions of people so you can continue to sit on your couch in comfort chanting U-S-A! and not have to think? That is equivalent to the actions of the Chinese government, while it continues to support the atrocities of the Sudanese government in the name of oil, while it continues to arrest journalists who dare criticize its actions, while it continues to sicken its citizens by dumping toxic chemicals wherever it is convenient, while it continues to oppress Tibet and the Uighars, while it continues to torture its prisoners, so many of them political, while it continues religious persecution - REAL religious persecution, not the faux variety claimed by some evangelical Americans.

How can you not think about it? How can you sit there knowing thousands of people lost their homes so the Olympic village could be built and not think about it? If you are religious, how can you not pray for the Chinese who suffer at the hands of an authoritarian communist government? Are we not living in the same country that proclaimed the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire?" Are we not the same ones who destroyed people's lives in communist witch hunts? Did we not skip an entire Olympics and ruin the dreams of our athletes because the games were held in a communist capital? And yet because we are able to buy cheap products from China, it somehow makes their authoritarian communist government ok?

How can you not think about it?

So we watch these games and we marvel at the ability of countries to get together and play games, not war, and we see the pure joy on the faces of the athletes, and we see the three athletes from a small country we may have never heard of with no chance for a medal and we smile, because we see the joy on their faces, and we see their dreams, and we realize their dreams are the same as ours. And you know what else is there? Hope. We ARE capable of getting along. We are capable of putting aside our differences to play games together. Games! Not war! Why do I love the Olympics? Because hope is transformed into three dimensional people and podiums and medals and pools and stadiums. Hope becomes something visible, and that makes it more real.

So we can watch, and think, and keep our eyes on the Chinese government and tell our politicians to stop pandering to China. We can cut down on the cheap plastic junk we don't need. We can choose not to buy the products advertised at the games. And we can do this all while still enjoying the Olympics in the ancient and modern city of Beijing. We can do all of this with hope. We can look at the progress the Chinese government has made and we can hope they will continue down that road. We can push them. We can change this world - we already have. Hope.

Baseball starts on Wednesday. I can't wait to watch Yulieski Gourriel. You think there is no politics in sport? One only has to look at Cuban baseball to see that is not true.