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From the LA Times Olympics blog:
Extra innings during Beijing Olympic baseball games will have something extra.
The rules will stay the same for the first 10 innings, but if a contest stretches into an 11th inning, each team would begin its next at-bat with runners on first and second. Managers also will be allowed to start the 11th at any point in their batting order.
Here's how it would work, according to the Associated Press: A manager who chooses to lead off the 11th with the club's No. 3 hitter would have to put the No. 1 batter on second base and the No. 2 hitter on first. If there's a 12th inning, it would begin wherever the previous lineup left off -- again with two batters on base and one at the plate.
Now there is a variation of this in softball, but that's a much lower-scoring game than baseball.
I remember sitting through a 14-inning game in 1984 between Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) and Korea that was scoreless through 13 before the Taiwanese pushed across three in the top of the 14 to win 3-0. Korea had just three hits. I still remember the audible groan by the sold out crowd at Dodger Stadium when the Taiwanese right fielder threw out a Korean runner at the plate in the 11th.
Not that the crowd was rooting more for one side or the other. They just wanted the game over. We had to go chant "USA! USA! USA!" for the likes of Barry Larkin, Mark McGwire, and Will Clark. Except Japan won the gold by a 6-3 score.
UPDATE - Japanese team manager Senichi Hoshino is not happy about the rule change at all.
"I want to strongly protest this," Hoshino said. "We're not playing exhibitions. We will be fighting all out to be the best in the world.
"I cannot be satisfied with the international federation making this change without consultation."
USA team coach Davey Johnson hasn't spoken publicly about the rule change as far as I can tell.
Then again in 2000, NBC hardly showed any and the US won the gold.
Eric Collins and Joe Magrane will handle the chores for NBC. I don't know if they are going to go to Beijing to call the games.
Baseball in 1984 was a demonstration sport so no medals were awarded.
Bob, it looks like the baseball announcers will do so from a studio in New York.
http://tinyurl.com/nbc-oly
"The 10 events (out of 34) that NBC will cover remotely are archery, badminton, baseball, equestrian, fencing, handball, shooting, soccer, softball and tennis. Some basketball games also will be called off monitors in New York."
And I wanted to see Sada Jacobsen!
http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=859/bio/index.html
I've long felt that baseball would be much more interesting if the final score was based on total bases instead of runs.
http://tinyurl.com/5lavng
I thought the WBC was great and will only get better, so whatever for Olympic baseball.
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