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Softball, baseball make their pitch

JAMES CHRISTIE

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 10:06 AM EDT 25/04/08

Two of the sports voted off the Olympic agenda for the 2012 London Games will be seeking reinstatement ...Read the full article

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  1. Matt O from Canada writes: Not having baseball in the sports line-up just goes to show you what a Euro-centric group the IOC is. Basically, baseball is played everywhere in the world (even Australia) besides Europe. In many parts of Asia and Latin America it is the #1 sport. Yet they can it because European countries don't want to build baseball diamonds whenever they award themselves the Olympics, which is often.

    Looks like the 2016 games will be going to Chicago, though, so I'm willing to bet that the sport re-appears on the schedule, even if the site for the games hasn't been officially determined yet.
  2. Michael Soft from Canada writes: I suggest adding 2 more sports:

    Peaceful Protest: players dressed in monk robes try to destroy and burn as much things as possible in the street. Burn a car 200 points. Burn a truck 400 points. Burn a shop 800 points. Kill 1 person 1600 points. Player with highest scores before the "crackdown" wins.

    Torch Relay: players in 2 opposing teams. one team carries the torch, constantly changing route. The other team tries to snatch the torch. The team owns the torch while passing the goal wins.
  3. Mr. Justice from Canada writes: GOLF is now considered a "sport" ?

    Okay . . . how about: bowling, card-playing, Parcheesi, and tiddlywinks, too ? Fair is fair.

    MEMO: You can play golf in between puffs on a cigarette, gulps of a beer, and bites of a ham sandwich, IF you can see the ball by peering around your fat gut and waddle up to it on your fat, weak, sausage-like legs . . . . Here's my definition of what a "sport" is NOT: an activity in which you can engage between puffs on a cigarette, gulps of a beer, and bites of a ham sandwich, IF you can see the ball (or other object of the game) by peering around your fat gut and get to the scene of the "action" [sic] by waddling up to it on your fat, weak, sausage-like legs.
  4. Merlin the Wise from Canada writes: Thats a pretty big generalization of golf don't you think?
  5. Wayne H from Canada writes: GOLF???
  6. wayne powers from saskatoon, writes: The biggest mistake was letting curling in, once they did that they opened the door to all beer drinking/smoking recreations. What is the difference between curling and darts--- nothing. So real atheletics will sit and watch while fat beer swilling, smoking lumps get to call themselves olympians.
    Am I bitter yes I see kids training hours a day giving up social events to try and make an olympic team while lumps get in because they can hold their booze better than the other team. My daughter plays ringette and hockey and she has a very very slim chance to ever make it and if she does it will cost her and our family both money and sacrafice.
  7. Chris Smith from Canada writes: The size of the Olympics is getting ridiculous. What they need to do is start taking sports out of the Olympics. IMO, most team sports should be excluded. Any sport where someone has to tell me who won should also be excluded (diving, synchronized swimming, gymnastics, ....). I'm not saying these aren't difficult sports, especially rings in gymnastics, I simply feel if an external judge needs to relay to the public who has won, then it doesn't deserve merit in my Olympic games.

    I also dislike the many swimming events. Do we really need the medley? Why not simply have it mimic track where it's the first person to the cross the line. Why all the different strokes when one can simply use the fastest stroke? Which also leads to the exclusion of race walking. As a nationally ranked marathoner, I simply find that sport ludicrous.
  8. Trilly B from Canada writes: Excellent suggestions, Michael Soft! Montrealers would do us proud! :)

    Yeah, the only one I have a problem with is Golf. More of a game, in my opinion. Though by definition I suppose it would classify as a "physical game".

    Gear manufacturers have sort of legitimized golf as a sport. But you should have to be able to break a sweat due to physical exertion, not because you're standing around in the sun.

    Love the prospect of seeing rugby included later on.
  9. Martyn Whitt from Canada writes: Chris Smith wrote: Which also leads to the exclusion of race walking. As a nationally ranked marathoner, I simply find that sport ludicrous.
    Ha couldn't agree more Chris, how does it feel knowing the folks that just weren't good enough to qualify for the Olympic marathon decided to get in through the "back door". Why don't they have a competition where they run 26 miles dragging an anchor tied to their necks? hahaha absurd.
  10. B G from Toronto, Canada writes: wayne powers from saskatoon, writes: My daughter plays ringette and hockey and she has a very very slim chance to ever make it and if she does it will cost her and our family both money and sacrafice.

    Yes, unlike golfers and curlers who just pick up a club or broom for the first time and head off to the Olympics. No money, training, effort, or sacrifice required.
  11. Merlin the Wise from Canada writes: So anyone that is a beer drinker and a smoker isn't an athelete? That what it pretty much sounds like. Many top atheletes in hockey for example fall right into that crowd, they just haven't gotten "fat". So for that hockey should not be an olympic sport according to a few of the posts. And it sounds like some people knocking some of these "sports" (I agree they aren't as sporty as the rest) haven't even played them. Curling takes skill, practice and dedication but apparantly its just a bunch of drunks who throw rocks.
  12. Dwide Schrude from Canada writes: Will the girl in the picture be playing? If so I'm all for it.
  13. Trilly B from Canada writes: Merlin, there's no doubt that curling takes skill and practice. But it's not much different than billiards.

    And I think you've got the image of 1970's hockey players in your head. Today's hockey players, like most other athletes at the Olympics, are physical machines.
  14. Michael Sharp from Victorious, Canada writes:

    Howzabout Partisan Blogging?

    There are many on this site, present company included, that would have a chance for Gold!
  15. Larfing Outloud from Virgin Islands (British) writes: Michael Sharp from Victorious, Canada writes: "Howzabout Partisan Blogging?"

    Not a chance Michael. Springfire, Republic of Saturn, et al, would take gold, silver and bronze.

    We're not a patch on the PRC crew.
  16. philip j. fry from Hamilton, Canada writes: Dwide Schrude from Canada writes: Will the girl in the picture be playing? If so I'm all for it.

    ________

    That's Jennie Finch of the USA team. Probably the best female pitcher there is. She has struck out several major league baseball players.
  17. mark berry from Paris, France, writes: What a strange headline for a story that barely even mentions roller sports.
  18. P cheng from ottawa, Canada writes: Olympic just a 2 weeks event. If every sport is included, how the host city have the space and capacities handles all of the event within the time period. It seems to me like that the Olympic will be broken down soon.
  19. R W from Canada writes: Golf, baseball, curling, shooting sports are all realy games. Not sports. Adding one legitimizes the others.

    My main criteria is to slowy purge the Olympics of sports that have judges. If you can 't count it, measure it, time it, or it needs music, then purge it. The games aren't about looking pretty.
  20. Matt O from Canada writes: R W from Canada writes: Golf, baseball, curling, shooting sports are all realy games. Not sports. Adding one legitimizes the others.

    My main criteria is to slowy purge the Olympics of sports that have judges. If you can 't count it, measure it, time it, or it needs music, then purge it. The games aren't about looking pretty.

    ===========================================

    There are two problems with your proposal (and those of many other posters who say the same thing).

    1 - The elimination of judged sports would eliminate combat sports (boxing, judo, etc.)...combat sports are perhaps the purest of sports, and are one of the few that were actually practiced in the Ancient Olympics.

    2 - Sports like archery and fencing, which many would consider to be "games", would also get the axe. Again, these are traditional sports, though you might argue their time has come.

    Any Olympics without boxing, despite its faults, is not a true sporting competition, in my opinion.
  21. i. ignatius from Mount Pleasant, Canada writes: i read the headline and immediately thought of "Rollerball" ... although the 2016 timeline is 2 years too early :-)
  22. Paul Hume from Mississauga, Canada writes: I'm waiting for World of Warcraft Arena battles to enter the olympics! Hey it takes skill to be the best at anything in the world! :P I'll pwn you a$$! teehee
  23. D. Clearwater from Lethbridge, AB, Canada writes: The height of ridiculousness for me was when I learned that there was a 'sport' called synchronized diving and that it was an Olympic sport no less. When I saw that I thought: 'Now there is a sport created by those who couldn't make the diving team.'

    I agree, there should be a scaling back on the number of sports since pretty soon we're likely to see poker, synchronized World of Warcraft Arena battles (to make Paul happy :) and every other made up, trend as an Olympic sport. I am already shuddering when I think of what is coming this August.
  24. Derek Lambert from Edmonton, Canada writes: I'm not going to watch the olympics until they put Canadian football in. 2 months 'til the season kickoff baby.

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