The Summer Olympics in Rio have been dominating the sporting news cycle of late as the once every four years event stared last week and also causing a slight blip was that the 2020 Olympics will include baseball (and softball) again for the first time since 2008.
First, while baseball and softball have been lumped together for their reentry into the Summer Games, they shouldn’t be. The Olympics represent the peak of softball competition world wide and features the best athletes at the game without causing a significant break in the most watched sport during the summer. There’s nothing wrong with having softball in the Olympics, despite every reason I have for baseball to be excluded, even if they seem similar.
First, and this is more personal opinion than logistical like most of the other arguments, the majority of the events in the Olympics aren’t sports and sports don’t really fit the mold. The Olympics are generally about seeing who is the best at one individual aspect of athleticism in the world, not which group of people can accomplish a goal the best while obeying a certain set of rules. There is value in finding who can jump the highest and the furthest, swim the fastest, run the fastest and so forth. These are not sports, which are athletic games, but races and other similar athletic feats.
In order to succeed at such a feat, you have to be truly incredible at one thing. That could be running, swimming, throwing, flipping around in circles or whatever, but the athletes only have to be good at that one aspect. In baseball (and nearly every other sport), athletes have to be proficient at multiple aspects of athleticism and, if they are not exemplary in one, they can make it up in other ways.
For example, an outstanding defensive outfielder could be fast, but that is not the only part of the game. A quick reaction time can make up for slow foot speed and proper positioning can make up even more. Running a poor route can also completely eliminate any speed advantage while knowing how and when to dive/slide can extend a player’s range significantly. That being said, baseball is also not just a fly ball catching competition and the outcome of the game depends on every man on the field and the defender must also compete offensively. The idea that a three hour game played by ten players at the same time should be played aside races that are judged in hundredths of a second is ludicrous.
The second side of this is the lack of need. You could bring up the examples of volleyball, basketball and other team sports that are played in the Olympics, but in general, these aren’t part of the massive sports industry (with the exception of men’s basketball) and don’t have a large scale international tournament to otherwise compete it (with the exception of soccer, which I also don’t believe should be an Olympic sport, because the World Cup does it so much better). If the goal is to discover the greatest country in the world at a sport, and the sport already does this, the Olympics are redundant.
For baseball, this tournament is the World Baseball Classic and has already taken place three times. Unlike the Olympics, where professional athletes from Cuban and Japanese Major Leagues have been allowed to play, but not those in Major League Baseball, the World Baseball Classic has allowed the best players from every country to participate and takes place at a time of year when they actually can. There is no question that the best baseball players in the world play in Major League Baseball, with the only exceptions being Cuba and Japan, as the best players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, South Korea, Canada and many other nations all come to the United States to shine. Even the veterans of Cuba and Japan often leave once they are able to compete against greater talent in the USA. To exclude these players makes any international competition entirely pointless.
While many have negative opinions of the World Baseball Classic, it is undeniable that it is a superior tournament to anything the Olympics could produce. By playing in March, any player in the world who wants to participate doesn’t have to give up on their current season to play and the selection of countries and tournament rules have proven to be extremely fair and a solid way to find the best team in the fewest games possible.
In the end, the logistical component component is the greatest flaw in Olympic baseball. Because the tournament takes place in the middle of Summer in the Northern hemisphere, all of the major leagues around the world (excluding Australia if you want to consider that a Major League) would have scheduling conflicts. For the 2020 games, the host country of Japan has already announced that the will suspend regular season play for a month to allow their countrymen to play and with this, they might as well hand Japan the gold medal. Major League Baseball will never suspend play for the Olympics so the best players from the USA, Dominican Republic, Venezuela and many other countries will be unable to play. Instead, those Olympic games will likely be Major League quality players from Japan against college and possibly minor leaguers from the United States and any other participants. If that excites anyone, I feel sorry for the quality of your MLB team.
The WBC was created because of these logistical problems and should remain the lone international championship in baseball. While some have worries of injuries by ramping things up too early in Spring or wasting a pitchers innings before the season even starts, just as many injuries occur during Spring Training practices and games. In addition, it only happens every three years and is a short period of time, not significantly impacting the regular season.
Publicly, there seems to be more positivity towards the idea of baseball in the Olympics than the WBC, but this is short sighted. You may be happy that your favorite sport is being represented internationally, but the fact is, it doesn’t have to be. Every country has fast people and gymnasts and swimmers, but not every country has 25 men who can play baseball at a Major League level. Football, the most popular sport in America, has never been featured in the Olympics and may never be as it has never caught on internationally. It doesn’t need to be though. The top football players in the world play in the NFL, just as the top basketball players in the NBA, hockey players in the NHL and baseball players in Major League Baseball. If you want to see these athletes compete, watch the professional leagues. If you want to see them play for their own countries, at least in baseball, watch the World Baseball Classic.
If you want to see college players play against pros, in the Grapefruit League each year a few teams usually play against some NCAA squads at the beginning of Spring Training. You’re completely welcome to go to Florida and enjoy that at the end of each February.
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