[mcrowder]

I hate to be the voice of dissention on this. But I've never thought baseball and softball should be an Olympic sport. OTOH, I don't think futbol or basketball should be either. To me, the perfect Olympic sport is one where people who compete in it feel like the Olympic Gold is the pinnacle of their sport. This is true in track and field, gymnastics, skating, kayaking, swimming, diving, weightlifting, etc. This is not true for baseball, softball, basketball, or soccer/futbol. The average generic baseball player would rather win the wrongly-named World Series or the Japanese Championship than the Olympics. The average generic basketball player would rather win an NBA championship (if he even has the talent to play in the NBA in the first place). Etc.

In some sports, (boxing, cycling come to mind), this definition of mine is borderline, but at least the case can be made that many of the best players in those sports would rate Olympic Gold at least as high as their other event championships. This is just not true in the 4 sports mentioned above. Maybe that's a shame, but it's the way it is.

Ask yourself this --- how much Olympic baseball/softball did you watch. I watched every televised inning of Univ-Texas softball this year, and most of the CWS. I watched most of the Texas Rangers games, some Astros games, and will watch all of the playoff games I can. I didn't watch a single inning of Olympic baseball or softball until the championship game of softball. Are you in the same boat?