No Olympic Baseball (Or Softball) For Now

Recently, the IOC voted to not include baseball or softball to the 2016 Olympic Games. Of course, I find this very disappointing. The Olympics main reason for not including baseball has a lot to do with the fact that Major League Baseball does not send the best players to the Games, but rather sends minor leaguers (and Stephen Strasburg) to represent USA. Some leagues, such as the Nippon (Japan) League did send some of their pros to compete. Essentially, the Olympics want a baseball "Dream Team" like basketball.

Baseball has their reasons for not sending their players to the Olympics, though. These include the fact that the summer games take place in August, which is in the middle of the pennant race. August is also a time where Major League teams want to have good crowds, and sending some of their top players overseas could impact attendance. The biggest issue has to do with the pitchers- which is not surprising considering the crys from the World Baseball Classic and even the All-Star game where teams are afraid that their prized commodities will be injured in something that doesn't involve their team. I think both sides have compelling arguements. There just seems to be no middle ground here.

So, I'm going to arbitrate between the two because I think baseball in the Olympics has a lot of potential- I remember watching Ben Sheets and Tom Lasorda beat the Cubans for the Gold in 2000, which was awesome.

So, what's the solution? I think it's actually fairly simple- if you think outside the box. But I think I've found it. Baseball should be played not in the Summer Games, but...wait for it...the Winter Games.

OK, now take a deep breath and let me explain myself.

And now for the inevitable questions- Why should the Boys of SUMMER play in the WINTER Olympic Games? What in the name of Brian Boitano are you thinking?

First of all, there are some very tangible reasons for this. First of all, when is spring training for baseball? February and March. When is the World Baseball Classic? The earliest WBC games began on March 5th, less than a week after February. And now for the clincher- when are the Winter Olympics held? According to their website Feb. 12- 28th. This would be a pretty good for Major League baseball because there are no meaningful games in February and it wouldn't interfere with any pennant race, although it might interfere with PFP- pitcher fielding practice, but I think the pitchers will survive. The players would have to start getting ready a little bit earlier, but I don't think that would be that big of a deal. Especially if they get promised big time endorsement deal like the basketball Dream Team. And speaking of that, with the Winter Olympics having fewer sports, baseball would get more of a center stage position to show itself off. This would help Internationalize baseball even further, and also take into consideration that the Olympics would be bringing baseball to a place where baseball is not played very much- like Sweden.

Oh yeah, and the Olympics would benefit from this to. How? Because it would be another major sport added to the Winter Games and it would add the participation of countries like Cuba, the Dominican, Japan, and etc., which would help their ratings world wide.

Uh, Todd. That sounds great, but don't they play the Winter Olympics in places like Norway? Won't it be, uh, you know...cold?

Yep. It'll be cold all right. But baseball doesn't have to be played outside. Just have the Vikings build a dome and there you go. This is not the time to go all purist on everybody. We're talking about a week long tournament or so. We put up with Montreal and Olympic Stadium for how many years? I doubt a domed stadium in Helsinki would be any worse than that.

OK, but what are they going to do with a baseball stadium after that?

Who cares? They'll probably turn it into apartments or a parking lot like every other country does when the Olympics leaves.

Like I said, have an eight team tournament and play it the last week of the Olympics with two four team pools. For example for 2010:

Pool A:

USA/combined with Puerto Rico
Dominican Republic
Mexico
Canada/host country which is variable. I picked Canada because they are hosting in 2010.

Pool B:

Cuba
Venezuela
Japan
Korea

The pools play three games round robin to decide seeding for the medal round, which will be single elimination. If someone wants to make the arguement that the medal round should be best two out of three, I could buy that. But if that was the case, the top two teams in both pools should advance, which I have no problem with either. Under my plan, the winners of the first round of the medal round then go on to the second round. The winners of the second round play for the Gold Medal, and the losers go on to play for the Bronze. Also, World Baseball Classic pitch count rules will be enforced, and there will be a DH. To further ensure that pitchers are protected, three will be 30 man rosters for all teams. Major League and other professional umpires will be used.

So, now all someone has to do is forward this to Bud Selig and the IOC and then we can play some baseball!