Baseball and softball have joined forces, but not to fight the ongoing problem of steroids. This time the summer’s two biggest pastimes have a different adversary – the Summer Olympics.
While baseball made its Olympic debut in 1904, softball debuted in 1996 and it was still in its infancy when both sports were left off the roster of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Now, with just one single spot on the 2020 Olympic program, the two have merged into a single federation to compete against squash and wrestling before the Sept. 8 vote in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The news of the merge comes after the International Olympic Committee voted against the separate sports in both 2005 and 2009. The new bid proposes separate men’s baseball and women’s softball events of eight teams each, played in back-to-back six-day tournaments.
“We wanted a partnership that could work together and use the attributes of both of our sports,” Don Porter, the American co-president of the World Baseball Softball Confederation told Sports Illustrated. “We’ve got an awful lot of young female athletes all over the world that are playing our sport and there’s a commercial side that baseball has that really strengthens our bid.”
There might just be one little problem for baseball – and that’s Major League Baseball.
The Summer Olympics take place in the middle of the MLB season and there’s no guarantee that the league’s players would be present for the event. In fact, commissioner Bud Selig has made it clear that the season won’t be put on hold for the Olympics. The hope of the federation is that players might go on hiatus of their own free will – but we wouldn’t count on it.
It’s not just the United States involved heavily when it comes to the two sports. Both are huge in eastern Asia, while growing quickly across much of Europe – as evident by this year’s World Baseball Classic and the top three softball finishers at the 2008 games in Beijing. For the two major sports to be left off the roster once again would be disappointing but given the history of wrestling – a sport believed to have been played during the ancient games – it could be strike three for both sports.
But don’t worry, you could always watch trampoline or racewalking.
Ed is an MMA/Extreme Sports contributor for CraveOnline Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @PhillyEdMiller, and subscribe at Facebook.com/CraveOnlineSports.
Photo Credit: Getty
