Thoma: Baseball now an Olympic strikeout

? Badminton is an Olympic sport. So are synchronized diving and trampoline ? and basketball, soccer and (for the winter games) ice hockey.

Baseball (and softball) are not. They were for a few Olympiads, but were kicked out after the Beijing games ? in part because the American major leagues wouldn?t free up the best players to partake.

Professional sports operate at the intersection of commerce and athletic competition, which makes for pretty lucrative real estate. The Olympics rout nationalism through that same intersection. Ka-CHING!

And don?t think the pros haven?t noticed. There has always been a tension between the Olympics and the big boys of the major team sports, and the tension has not always been relieved with the same results.

Men?s soccer, for example, is in the Games on an age 23-or-younger basis ? an arrangement that protects FIFA?s lucrative World Cup (played in alternative even-numbered years) and spares Europe?s big soccer leagues from losing its stars (or shutting down) for weeks more than once every four years.

That?s the route David Stern, commissioner of the NBA, and at least some of his league?s owners would like to take with men?s basketball. Aligned against that idea are such stars as LeBron James and, perhaps more potently, shoe makers such as Nike. The WNBA, on the other hand, welcomes the opportunity to showcase women?s basketball on an international stage.

The NHL is at least making noise about skipping the 2014 Games, which will be held in Russia. The NHL?s thinking: It?s one thing to shut down for three weeks when the Olympics are held in the United States or Canada; it?s another when they?re on the other side of the world and the time zone differences negates much of the exposure.

And baseball is out completely.

Baseball would love the international exposure that the Olympics would bring; while the game is popular in the nations where it?s entrenched ? the U.S., Japan, much of the Carribean ? it?s a minor sport at best elsewhere.

Which is where the World Baseball Classic comes in. It?s MLB?s effort to mimic soccer?s World Cup.

The real problem with the WBC is timing. MLB?s regular season and postseason are always going to be higher priorities than a international tournament.

And holding the event during spring training raises issues of pitcher conditioning and health. Limit pitcher workloads, and the competition becomes that much less real.

The financial self-interest of the majors works against any sort of truly competitive national tournament along the lines of the World Cup, be it under the auspices of the Olympic Games or MLB.

What we may soon learn from the other major team sports is that it doesn?t work for them either.

Edward Thoma (344-6377; ethoma@mankatofreepress.com) is a Free Press staff writer. Read his Baseball Outsider blog. Follow him on Twitter @bboutsider.

Source: http://mankatofreepress.com/sports/x1962241505/Thoma-Baseball-now-an-Olympic-strikeout

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