The High Court

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An Olympic Boycott

As I sat down to ponder who might be representing Luxembourg in the global Home Run Derby Monday night in Detroit, I received notice from one of The High Court’s loyal readers, Harold Huston, that the International Olympic Committee had seen fit to drop baseball and softball from the Olympic competition roster.  Harold is a lifelong baseball fan, and his two daughters have given him a vested interest in softball.  So you can imagine his disappointment at such an announcement.  And he had plenty of company.  Many Americans were quick to voice their displeasure with the IOC’s (Idiots on Crack?) decision.  I feel your pain.  Anything that might cost me an opportunity to see the beautiful Jennie Finch on television is an absolute travesty…

 

Seriously though, it is a ridiculous situation.  Especially for the remarkably talented ladies of USA softball, who may well have been the most dominant force at the 2004 games in Athens.  Outscoring their opponents 51-1 on the way to the gold, the 2004 team may well have been as talented as any women’s fastpitch team ever assembled.  That they will not have an opportunity to compete in 2012 is completely absurd.  These women have a professional league to showcase their skills in, but in terms of having a grand global stage to show people how wonderful they are, the Olympics was their Showtime.

 

As for baseball, I know we find it hard to swallow, but…how many of you knew we didn’t make it through qualifying to Athens in ’04?  Sad, but true.  Look, despite the fact that we managed to win gold in 2000 (behind splendid pitching from current Milwaukee ace Ben Sheets), Olympic baseball is a mere footnote for the home of Major League Baseball.  They are the Summer Olympics, and it isn’t as if Major League owners are willing to shut down in the middle of a pennant race and send their valuable box office commodities off to the Olympics.  And it isn’t as if Team USA would be a lock to qualify anyway.  If qualifying was anything like it is for soccer (or football for you Europeans) or basketball, Team USA would have their hands full with Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela (think a staff with Freddy Garcia, Francisco Rodriguez, and Johan Santana would scare somebody?).  Even Mexico would be dangerous.  But never mind.  Because MLB owners are not going to shut their game down for a trip to the Olympics.

 

And here’s the funny part.  The IOC has indicated that part of the problem is the fact that big leaguers don’t play.  How laughable is that?  Remember the stink everybody raised back in ’92 when it was clear the Dream Team was going to show up in Barcelona?  The games were for “amateurs” and the big, bad pros from the NBA were an abomination to the spirit of the Games.  Never mind that every European participant at the Olympics was already a pro back home.  Now they complain because you don’t send the very best you have.  Hilarious.

 

The second part of the Olympic complaint is the steroid issue that comes with Major League Baseball.  They have a concern that baseball’s testing program doesn’t match up with the stringent testing programs of the IOC.  Well, I will give the Idiots this:  Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.  Because the Olympic Games have been nothing if not the height of corruption over the years.  Remember how badly Roy Jones, Jr. was jobbed out of his gold medal in 1988 in Seoul.  The hometown favorite he fought that day didn’t even manage to breathe Jones, yet he was awarded the victory.  Ahh, the Olympic ideal.  And how about the fiasco a year ago concerning Paul Hamm’s gold medal in gymnastics?  Or the fact that in the 1970’s East German female swimmers had enough hair under their arms to weave a wig for Rapunzel?  Nothing makes me feel less like anything is on the up and up than the Olympic Games…suggesting that Major Leaguers might bring down their high standards is absurd.

 

Did you know that one of the Olympic movement’s missions is the promotion of women in sports?  I wonder how promoted elite softball players around the world feel right now?  Not so much, I would guess.  Softball is a terrific game, each country that participates sends the very best players they have, and to the best of anyone’s knowledge, there is no performance enhancing drug cloud over women’s fastpitch softball.  So what is to be done to remedy this miscarriage of justice?

 

How about an annual World Softball Championship?  Major League Baseball is going to have its World Baseball Classic next spring, so why not the ladies, too?  Paul Allen, Donald Trump, or some other deep-pocketed gentlemen could surely get together the dough to provide the proper promotion, network coverage, and financial compensation to beat the pants off the Olympic Games.  I mean, after all, ask most big league players which they would rather have…Olympic gold medal or World Series ring?  I think we all know the answer.  The elite softball players of the world would forget the Olympics very quickly if they had the chance to compete on another grand global stage.

 

I don’t want to come off as some jingoistic, Ugly American.  But if Jacques Rogge and company don’t want our very American games in their Olympics, so be it.  I could care less.  I have a very healthy disinterest in the Olympics, one that is beginning to border on a genuine dislike.  Hey, if I want to catch a good game of badminton or Ping Pong (I refuse to call it table tennis), I can stop by somebody’s backyard.  I don’t have to wait for four years.  Sure, I will miss the modern pentathlon (what is the modern pentathlon, by the way?), but The Chief Justice is announcing his boycott of the 2012 games right now.  I hope you will join me.

 

Jennie Finch was the only reason I was watching anyway…

 

 

The worst thing about no softball in the Olympics?

Less Jennie.

(msnbc.com)