Baseball and Softball to be dropped from Olympics -2012

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2005-07-08-baseball-softball-dropped_x.htm


All I can say is: good riddance


Now if we can get rid of synchronized swimming, we'll have purged all the non-sports (standing around and scratching is not a sport, it's a game)

The word 'sport' implies physical activity. Basketball, football (both kinds), hockey, etc are sports. Baseball is a game, much like billiards or bowling.

I'm alerting!

;)

(BTW, why do you need steroids there? To scratch harder? Or to spit farther?)

:kick:

Hitting a 97 mph fastball is too easy for you.

brain surgery isnt easy, but it still isnt a sport

Quite a bit of running and throwing and catching involved with baseball. Kind of similar to football, eh? In fact, I bet more time is spent not running or throwing or catching in football than in baseball... I wholeheartedly disagree, and I'm quite offended by such a nefarious attack... :)

most of it is either standing around waiting on a pitch to FINALLY be hit, or standing around waiting your turn at bat

x

and scratch yourself, you probably were a horrible player.

i never claimed it didnt take skill, just that it hardly qualifies as a sport due to its VERY limited physical activity

Or the javelin? Or any other sport where winning is defined through a series of short-term activity?

Ever watched a shut put contest? 20 guys stand around waiting to heave an iron ball, which takes all of 2 seconds. Not much of a sport by your definition.

when a person watches baseball or softball all they see are people standing around a field. It's far more than that. You have to be able to pitch, not easy, hit, throw, and run. None of those are as easy as it looks. A ball can travel pretty damn fast and we busted our asses in hopes of being faster than the ball.

Pitching is hard as hell, too. You can't just throw it over home plate. That takes training and talent, if you're lucky.

Throwing a ball looks easy, but you have to train to throw it far enough, fast enough and to be able to hit it's mark.

Maybe some baseball or softball lessons are in order. This isn't just a lazy saturday of playing around with a few friends.

We took it seriously. Softball was our lives. We ate and breathed that shit. We were damn good. Good enough for regional championships. Once you go through that, then you know it's a sport and a competitive one at that.

4 of which i was an all-star second baseman

no learning is necessary

I said it didnt have much physical activity and is as boring as watching grass grow.

Respond to what I say instead of your straw man.

I see the sport much differently and my passion for it has never wavered over the years.

I've never considered football much of a sport. What's so thrilling about a bunch of guys banging their heads together over a ball covered in pigskin?

Racing? What sport? They sit in a car and drive. I can do that.

There are tons of sports each of us can list and run down. It doesn't make them any less in anyone else's eyes.

If I have offended you with this post or my previous one, I do apologize.

vindication of the accuracy of my point...

Now there's a sport.

:eyes:

I vaulted in high school and can say from experience it is a sport that combines speed and muscular strength. A good pole vaulter is part sprinter and part gymnast. It is a true sport in which the vaulter is pitted against himself and space, not like so-called "competitive 'sports'" in which you are only as good as your opponent is bad!

I wonder what the actual work to ass scratching ratio is in pole vaulting is compared to baseball. Frankly, I've got a lot more respectful for baseball.

Sure, they compete against each other but the ultimate goal is to go higher than your previous best; to do better each time you take the pole in your hand. And the energy--the feel of the pole as it bends--is indescribable. Have you ever felt the tenseness of potential energy as it turns into kinetic energy? You hold onto the pole and, you know if you let go, the energy that pole possesses will explode and put you in immediate peril. You know you MUST hold on or fall to the ground, a crumpled mass. But you DO hold on a let the energy unfold. As you rock back and point your feet skyward, you feel yourself being propelled to the clouds, and at the apex of your vault, you feel weightlessness and a sense of nirvana. I believe its about as close as you can get to floating.

No, you don't have time to "ass scratch" in polevaulting. Not like in baseball where the greatest concentration occurs when trying to chew tobacco and spit and adjust your cup at the same time.

But it still isn't any different than baseball.

You're still pushing the limits of your body. You're still attempting to achieve personal records while hoping the other guy screws up. You're still standing around for hours scratching your ass waiting for your turn.

I agree with the previous poster who played BB and said he spent most of this time standing around waiting for something to happen. I played BB too and have the same memories--waiting for something to happen. With pole vaulting, you KNOW your time is near, and you psych up for it. Like those WWII movies where GIs aboard a ship await the next morning when they will be ordered to board landing craft and storm a beach, in polevaulting you experience a similar feeling. You wait and you know you're time is near. You are almost not even aware of the other vaulters--its just you and the space. You sit in a trance mentally going over what you will do--you see yourself doing what you need to do. Or you pace, oblivious to all that is going on around you. It's just you and the pole. That's all.

Unlike baseball where you can actually nap on the field and get away with it providing no one lucks out and hits a ball to you...

I have no idea why you think they are void of physical activity.

I loved watching the softball. I played when I was a kid all the way up to high school. I love softball and played it as often as I could get away with.

Just today at the store a group of girls made it to the high school softball world series. They're raising money and I cleaned out all the cash I had to give them.

The women's softball at the Olympics was something I never missed. I even recorded it on those days I couldn't watch.

I'm sorry to see it go. :(

I want to see former Yugoslavia (Bosnia/Herzegovina?) run Yugos up against a big ass Ford SUV Exhibitionist - now, that's sporting!! ;)

what you think is or isn't a sport. Honestly if you dislike baseball than I could not give a *.

The Olympics seem sort of pointless these days anyways.

:eyes:

They are wasting their time. I doubt anyone can convince you baseball is a sport and I don't care about your classifications. I mean at least Carlin makes defining a sport funny. You are a big YAWN.

many (most) of the big sport in the games now enjoy exposure every single year. The games are no longer a highlight of a rare event but in many cases a side track.

In the case of say baseball. Who cares who wins the gold medal? No one. MLB and the world series is the goal of any player.

Home run derby would be like billiards or bowling. You do one simple skill -- then stand and watch what happens.

Baseball and softball require different athletic feats -- speed to sprint around the bases, steal second, track down fly balls in the outfield, etc. power to hit the ball a long away, arm strength to pitch, get a runner out from deep in the hole, etc.

You could make arguments about almost any Olympic event -- shot put, weightlifting, archery, the 100 meters, etc.

with this unseemly celebration at the death of Olympic baseball.

tut, tut.

I prophesy that as you lay on your death bed someday, reviewing your allotted span of time here on a planet graced with many a fine green baseball diamond, you will find occasion to regret your display of shabby sportsmanship.

And in conclusion: Go Red Sox

and others I could name (horse dancing, theres even a bunch that want poker and chess in the olympics).


You go get smacked with a baseball or try running around the bases, see if you think its like 'billiards' :eyes:

If theres one sport they should get rid of its basketball

I mean, what's the point of tennis, baseball, basketball being "olympic" sports anyway. There are other venues that actually decide the best in each sport. Save the Olympics for the sports that need that kind of international competition, i.e. swimming, track and field, wrestling....The other sports, Basketball et al, are performed on a much higher level in their regular venues.....

They should just include the events of the original Olympics and get rid of the rest.

Also, they should eliminate the Winter Olympics all together. I don't know for certain but would hazard to guess that the ancient Greeks never went skiing.

It's a sport for neither.

.... drop the Olympics from the Olympics.

But seriously, y'all are dancing around the problem IMHO.

I'm for dropping ALL team sports from the Olympics. Olympic competition should be an individual effort.


Who-ever has the best undetected performance-enhancing drugs wins!

Though it's not clear from the USA Today story, there are no other sports replacing these 2. Rugby etc. were rejected as well.