Gee, that was fun. Let’s copy it! (please no!) | It's About The Money

Gee, that was fun. Let’s copy it! (please no!)

March 1, 2010 by Jason@IIATMS

There’s an interesting discussion on MLB on XM this morning following the scintillating gold medal hockey game yesterday. I say “interesting” but really, I’m trying to be kind because I love MLB on XM. [Well, I loved MLB on XM when they had Scott Graham running the morning show with either Billy Ripken, Dan Duquette or Buck Martinez as the co-hosts. Then they changed things up and brought Rob Dibble from the 4pm slot to the morning drive, wrecking my morning drive but improving my drive home. And Graham is nowhere to be heard and it's a big loss.]

Dibble was repeated beating the “MLB should at least explore putting baseball back into the Olympics” horse to death today to the point that I turned the channel. I never turn off MLB on XM during my drive, but today, I did. Sadly, I can see this happening as Dibble can be impossibly infuriating. Upon getting to the office and checking the news/chatter of the day, I see that MLB on XM posted this on Facebook:

After seeing yesterday’s exciting Gold Medal Game, would Major League Baseball be wise to take a cue from hockey and shut down the sport for two weeks to allow Major League players to take part in the Olympics? (assuming that baseball returns to the Summer Olympics!)

(click “view full post” to read more)

The game yesterday was a perfect blend of timing, good fortune and drama. If the US team lost in the semis, do you really think this would be the topic of the day?  If the US had gotten blown out in the finals, this wouldn’t be a topic today.  But, because the stars were properly aligned, it was a great afternoon of hockey drama.

So let’s quickly review why this is a bad idea in the first place, and remind Dibbs that this has already been “explored”… (feel free to add your own in the comments below):

  1. We already have the WBC
  2. We in the USA don’t care all that much about the WBC
  3. MLB put the WBC before the season as they did not want to interrupt the regular season
  4. I can see no ownership/front office of a contending team allowing their best players, in the midst of a playoff run, to go play in an exhibition, no matter what it’s called or what they get for winning
  5. Baseball has a limited presence in Europe, Africa and Asia, excluding Japan, Taiwan, etc.
  6. Who’s to say that the Olympic Committee would even want baseball/softball back in the Olympics anyways? Just because we, here in the USA, deem it so? 
  7. Would require additional infrastructure to be built at most of the non-US locations to handle the games

 
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2 Responses to “Gee, that was fun. Let’s copy it! (please no!)”

  1. Ron says:
    March 1, 2010 at 2:10 pm

    “Baseball has a limited presence in Europe, Africa and Asia, excluding Japan, Taiwan, etc”

    Uh, with all due respect, – wrong.

    Baseball has a huge prescence in Europe, Africa, and Asia, excluding Japan, Taiwan, etc.

    It’s Major Leauge Baseball (re: Bud) that has a limited baseball presence in Europe, Africa, and Asia, excluding Japan, Taiwan, etc.

    There is baseball outside of the major leagues. But MLB is missing a great opportunity here, becasue Bud doesn’t see the end result. He thinks there is no money in it, so he’s not interested.

    Problem is, he missed the meetings with Dave Stern and Paul Tagliube.

    Just because Bud doesn’t want it, and ESPN hasn’t force fed it to the automatons who watch doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

    A developmental league in Europe would be succesful. It just needs some help. Who could do that?

    The world wonders.

  2. RollingWave says:
    March 2, 2010 at 7:25 am

    Olympic baseball meant A LOT to non North American countries (except Cuba) . for Taiwan, the two most talked about baseball game (At an adult level) have been the 1992 win in Barcelona against Japan (which resulted in their only baseball medal) and the 2003  comeback – extra inning walk off win against Korea that gave them their first baseball birth since 92.



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