There won’t be any baseball at the 2012 London Olympics. There won’t be any softball either, as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) eliminated both sports by secret vote from the venue of Games events in 2005. The Beijing Olympics will have been the last appearance of these two sports. While both sports baseball are eligible to reapply for the 2016 Summer Games, there are no assurances that any reapplication will be successful.
The secret vote excluding the two sports took place at an IOC meeting in Singapore in 2005. No official reason was given for this decision. The speculation is that both baseball and softball were ‘too American’. Many of the athletes believe that the sports were eliminated because the United States contingent dominated.
Certainly that appears to be the case in women’s softball, which became an Olympic sport in the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, where the US softball team took gold. The Americans won again in 2000 at the Sydney Games and in 2004 at the Athens Games. At the 2008 Games in Beijing, the softball team from Japan took home the gold, while the US women claimed silver.
The secrecy of the vote seems to be contrary to the Olympic spirit of fair play. The Olympic Games are an opportunity to showcase and expand sports enjoyed by millions of children and adults. If these were eliminated because of American dominance, why was men’s basketball not removed from the list of Olympic sports? For decades, the US men’s basketball teams consistently won Olympic gold. The sport was not eliminated. Instead, the sport developed in other countries and now many international basketball teams challenge the USA for Olympic gold.
The decision has fueled further speculation on its motivation. Is it because Major League Baseball does not send its best players? Is it related to the ongoing drug controversy with men’s baseball? For the women, there is no major league venue. The Olympics is the pinnacle of women’s branch of the sport, and that has now been removed by secret decision.
With all due respect to other summer Olympic sports, there are far more people watching, playing and following baseball and softball than some of the more entrenched Olympic events like women’s synchronized diving. It is bewildering and unfair that baseball and softball will not be Olympic events in London and possible future Olympic venues. It is simply wrong.
