Efforts to return to the Olympics

[Poseidon]

Well I guess the efforts just fell flat at the door.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/n ... ympics.ap/

I guess someone counted the IOC vote and did not want to bother.

[freetacos]

The "World Baseball Classic" is getting more popular but there is just no worldwide support of baseball.
Interest in softball is not even a blip on the radar. Grown women playing softball on little league size field? Please... for most people softball is a place where old wanna be's like me go to drink beer and dream of our glory years.
I don't think it helped that the US softball team beat the crap out of anyone they played and dominated the gold medals. No one likes a bully

ft

won't be back in my lifetime.

[Tyler Durden]

The "World Baseball Classic" is getting more popular but there is just no worldwide support of baseball.
Interest in softball is not even a blip on the radar. Grown women playing softball on little league size field? Please... for most people softball is a place where old wanna be's like me go to drink beer and dream of our glory years.
I don't think it helped that the US softball team beat the crap out of anyone they played and dominated the gold medals. No one likes a bully

ft

won't be back in my lifetime.

Agreed.

[TheCloser]

Baseball and softball are elitest sports. If you want to compete you need a lot of cash. The days of kids growing up in the poor inner city and making your way out through sports like baseball are over like Ozzie Smith, Eddie Murray, and Daryl Strawberry did back in the day.

In the US if you play baseball or softball your parents probably have a crap load of debt. Local tournaments, paid instructors, outside of the state tournaments, etc. Thus, how in the world can anyone play softball globally and make it a fair playing field? The only reason guys from the islands make it to the bigs is because there are academies setup on those islands by big league teams to find who's next and they start to learn, sleep, and breathe baseball as soon as they're discovered.

[Pale Rider]

No softball, no reason for me to watch.....

[Sam]

It has nothing to do with the interest or who dominates (didn't we lose in 2008?), it is solely about facilities. It costs a lot for a non-softball playing country to build a venue which will be used for the instant Olympics and then never used again. Makes much more sense for golf to be an olympic sport.....

[Pale Rider]

It has nothing to do with the interest or who dominates (didn't we lose in 2008?), it is solely about facilities. It costs a lot for a non-softball playing country to build a venue which will be used for the instant Olympics and then never used again. Makes much more sense for golf to be an olympic sport.....

Huh?...youre kidding...right?

On a brighter note I did see where the IOC was going to consider Competitive Pole Dancing...REALLY

[Dugout Dad]

Baseball and softball are elitest sports. If you want to compete you need a lot of cash. The days of kids growing up in the poor inner city and making your way out through sports like baseball are over like Ozzie Smith, Eddie Murray, and Daryl Strawberry did back in the day.

In the US if you play baseball or softball your parents probably have a crap load of debt. Local tournaments, paid instructors, outside of the state tournaments, etc. Thus, how in the world can anyone play softball globally and make it a fair playing field? The only reason guys from the islands make it to the bigs is because there are academies setup on those islands by big league teams to find who's next and they start to learn, sleep, and breathe baseball as soon as they're discovered.

I believe you can make an argument that an athlete needs a crap load of money to compete at the elite level in all sports. An unfortunate reality of today's athletics.

[PDad]

It has nothing to do with the interest or who dominates (didn't we lose in 2008?), it is solely about facilities. It costs a lot for a non-softball playing country to build a venue which will be used for the instant Olympics and then never used again. Makes much more sense for golf to be an olympic sport.....

It's all about $$$$, no matter how you slice it. IOC wants the MLB stars so they can get more ticket and tv revenue. Without that, the facilities are cost prohibitive. The joint baseball/softball venture are trying to minimize the facilities issue by saying baseball and softball can use the same venue (e.g. run baseball first week and then run softball 2nd week). Golf was very attractive because they expect to get top professionals from all over the world and it will increase revenue.

[Sam]

It has nothing to do with the interest or who dominates (didn't we lose in 2008?), it is solely about facilities. It costs a lot for a non-softball playing country to build a venue which will be used for the instant Olympics and then never used again. Makes much more sense for golf to be an olympic sport.....

Huh?...youre kidding...right?

On a brighter note I did see where the IOC was going to consider Competitive Pole Dancing...REALLY

Uhhh....no....I'm not kidding. Are you saying that softball is more popular than golf? Really?

We don't really want to back to the Olympics anyway....we put together the dream team in 2008 and we got schooled. That was the beginning of the demise of Candrea.