UpDates: Olympic Countdown
Outta There
Beijing may be the last time you’ll see baseball at the Olympics.
Baseball might be America’s national pastime, but its popularity in the Olympic community has faded—so much so that baseball and its counterpart in international sports, women’s softball, will disappear from the Olympics after August’s Beijing games. In 2005, the International Olympic Committee, in an effort to streamline the Olympics’ agenda, voted to remove baseball and softball beginning in 2012 in London. Softball’s biggest problem was the dominance of the U.S. team (see sidebar). The Americans haven’t been especially strong in baseball, in part because major-leaguers busy with their pro teams have been unable to play in the Olympics. That was a main reason that the sport is being dropped after just five Olympiads. (Cuba won three gold medals; the U.S. took the gold in 2000 in Sydney.) “We were more disappointed than we were demoralized,” says Paul Seiler, the executive director of USA Baseball. “In ’09, we get a chance to make a presentation to get it reinstated for 2016.” Olympic committee President Jacques Rogge has insisted that baseball toughen its drug policy and guarantee that top U.S. players will attend the games before he’ll support a reinstatement. International baseball officials have spoken with Major League Baseball about such issues. “Baseball worked very hard to be in the Olympics,” says Harvey Schiller, the president of the International Baseball Federation. “We need to study the reasons why baseball was taken off the program, and we have to fix those things.” —Barry Wilner
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So Long, Softball
What is the most dominant team in Olympic sports? Try U.S. softball, which has won all three gold medals since the debut of the sport at the 1996 games and is heavily favored to roll through this year’s Olympics in Beijing. That superiority— a 24-4 overall record—is not surprising, because the Americans also have won the past six World Championships. Year after year, the depth and pitching of the U.S. team have been formidable against such contenders as Japan, Australia, China, and Canada. And the 2008 U.S. squad is on a mission. “I think it’s unfortunate what happened with softball’s removal from the Olympic Games for 2012,’’ says Lisa Fernandez, an all-time great pitcher who set an Olympic world record of 25 strikeouts in a game in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She came out of retirement to play in Beijing. “I feel like it’s this team’s responsibility to showcase what the world is going to miss with us not being a part in 2012,” Fernandez says.
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