I know people are getting sick of the Olympics, but I'm seriously distressed over the fate of Women's Softball as an Olympic sport. I even thought that it was ousted for this Olympics, but was then told by Meesha it was on. Guess the softball team wasn't as glitzy to plug as Swimming or Gymnastics.
Joe Posnanski wrote a great article about the fate of the team this morning. Check it out.
So why is this possibly the last year (It's definitely out for 2012, but may be reinstated in 2016)for Olympic Softball?
It seems like the rest of the world is a bunch of crybabies because our team is just that good. Boo hoo, losers!
According to Posnanski (one of my favorite sports writers):
Everyone at the IOC has denied that America’s dominance has anything to do with the great softball purge — after all, they say, dominance is not the point, China is dominant in table tennis, Austria in alpine skiing, Germany in luge, the Hungarians in water polo and so on. But there is something fishy here: IOC president Jacques Rogge said that softball does not have “universal appeal,” even though it is played in more than 100 countries, probably quite a few more than modern pentathlon. He seemed to be saying, “We’re tired of watching the rest of the world get pummeled by these Americans.”
So what? Just because the US has scored 44 runs to 1 (to Canada) in the entire series doesn't mean they should toss the sport.
The super-bestest part of all this? Some people think that the US Softball team should apologize for the dominance.
WTF?
I agree with Posnanski. Losing a game won't save the sport's spot in the Olympics. I disagree with Posnanski's commenters who think it's all about anti-Americanism (even though the whole US team has dominated the medal count, FYI), but in some ways I think it's anti-American female.
The MBL are being jerks about letting their players join the Olympic Baseball team, so why do the girls have to suffer?
It's not our fault that Americans play the best baseball and softball in the world...So, rest of the world, you can just cry and take your mitts home and say you don't want to play anymore.
(Oh yeah, buy JoPo's book "The Soul of Baseball: A Roadtrip Through Buck O'Neil's America" It's awesome.)
2 comments:
it's just that no one likes baseball/softball. these games suck just as much as they are boring.the other country probably use them just for a free ticket to Olympics.
I like to watch baseball and softball more than many other olympic sports. It is a shame that they're removing it.
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