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Baseball pleads its case to the IOC for 2016
2008-11-14 19:24
by Bob Timmermann

MLB and the International Baseball Federation made their initial plea to the International Olympic Committee to try to get baseball reinstated as a sport for the 2016 games.

IBAF head Harvey Schiller was the primary speaker, but MLB representative Paul Archey read a statement from Commissioner Bud Selig and Detroit outfielder Curtis Granderson spoke too.

Granderson showed the commission Mark McGwire's baseball card as a member of Team USA in the 1984 Summer Olympics, the games in which baseball was unveiled as a demonstration sport. That tournament was played at Dodger Stadium. Granderson also gave each member a copy of his own 2008 baseball card.

Granderson needs to learn a lot about how to bribe an IOC member. He should talk to some of the good people who helped put together the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

MLB promised that its best players would participate, although the season would not be stopped. Also, MLB promised not to schedule any games the day of any gold medal game in Olympic baseball.

Comments
2008-11-14 22:26:18
1.   Gagne55
I do not want MLB players removed from competition mid-season.
2008-11-15 08:32:10
2.   Gen3Blue
Each of Granderson's boxed cards should have hidden 10 hundred dollar bills underneath!
2008-11-15 08:39:46
3.   DXMachina
Call me jaded, but if baseball gets back in, I wouldn't put it past the lords of baseball to renege on every one of their promises, except for not stopping the season.
2008-11-15 09:19:08
4.   Bob Hendley
IIRC there is a strange rule in Olympic baseball, where you get to start off with a runner on base in x-innings. They might think about spicing things up by doing that from the get-go, or even more base runners. Think of it, bases loaded in the first inning. Boy, talk about exciting. Now about that marathon...
2008-11-15 11:37:22
5.   Bob Hendley
IOC baseball rules and Cargill's recent DT post about his football game, reminds me of perverse incentives that can sometimes come about when officials monkey with the rules. I recall reading about an incident during a Caribbean futbol championship, some years back. In order to ensure that teams did not sit on the ball in overtime, it was decreed that winning in overtime by a goal was equivalent to winning 2-0 in regular time. Seems that during the tournament one team, Barbados, had to win by two goals to reach the next stage. They were beating Grenada by 2-0 with 3 minutes left in the match, when Grenada scored a goal. Realizing that their best chance was to take it into overtime, in order to advance, one of the Barbados defenders attacked his own goal and scored, and then he and his teammates immediately ran to the Grenada goal and defended it from the Grenadians, who had wised up by that time, and began trying to score in their own goal as well. Regulation ended in a tie and the Barbadians scored in overtime and advanced to the next round.
2008-11-15 15:48:29
6.   Bob Timmermann
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThpYsN-4p7w

I thought people from Barbados were Bajans.

2008-11-15 15:50:29
7.   Bob Timmermann
http://www.snopes.com/sports/soccer/barbados.asp
2008-11-15 19:47:28
8.   Chyll Will
If you ever happen to see a commercial (or industrial, I know not which) with kids from different backgrounds playing ball or palling around in the field, while asking the IOC to bring baseball back to the Olympics, know that I worked on that set (the Japanese Little Leaguer pitching slo-mo to the camera was actually pitching to me, a former LL catcher, ha!)

...umm, that's my lowly contribution to this story >;)

2008-11-16 06:38:30
9.   Bob Hendley
6 - Bajans, eh. I have never been to that part of the Antilles, and feel lesser for it.
2008-11-16 10:40:22
10.   Bob Timmermann
It turns out that Bajan is the more familiar term and Barbadian is the official term.

Bajan refers to the creole spoken in Barbados.

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