BitterDodgerFan wrote:chris8 wrote:I'm still trying to get over the fact that baseball got dumped. I was so psyched when London won the 2012 vote, only for baseball to get kicked out the next day. A great opportunity to broaden the sport's appeal in the UK - thrown away
why? nobody gave a crap about US baseball in olympics. they can't send over any decent players due to the MLB season and they get schooled by powerhouses like cuba/japan/korea. it was somewhat of an ultimatum that US send over better players and they didn't. US showed they could care less. it's no big deal though because frankly nobody really cared about US olympic team.
Personally, I'm glad that the MLB don't suspend the season for the Olympics. Adding extra mileage on the players, literally and figuratively, isn't good and frankly, I don't care if it's for the sake of representing their countries (I have a massive club over country bias, FWIW).
I don't think Chris is griping about baseball getting ousted from the Olympics because of the possible cause of the apathy of MLB with regards to the Olympics. It's just that because in the UK, it's so difficult to keep up with baseball when the bulk of evening games here are in the wee hours of the morning there. I can attest to the time difference being a killer when I was catching up with Laker games on the other side of the pond.
From what I see, there are folks in the UK who want to like baseball and I'd say of the Big 4 US sports, it's the one sport where I'd reckon most would be interested in. I've stayed up at 1am to watch Dodger games on Sky Sports and the cool thing is on the pregame shows, they have a commentator or two who would give a good layman's rundown on things like rivalries, player tendencies, etc. I know for a fact that when I was getting into rugby and cricket here in the States, I wish that the cable network coverage was a bit friendlier to those who are getting a feel for the game, especially cricket, even though those channels are targeted for expatriates. Anyhow, baseball in the Olympics on British soil simply would have opened the game to a more wide scale consciousness there, at least while everyone's wide awake.
You know, a few years back, I had to be pretty ecstatic when I saw a couple of Dodger shirts/caps in a JJB store in a rather boring part of Essex. However, it's an island in an ocean of Yankees merchandise. That's still a sign the game is catching on over there.
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by AussieDodger » Sat Oct 10, 2009 2:55 am 
