Yes, Baseball is a big deal in this world. There are leagues
all over the earth, Major League and Japanese League being the most popular of
them all. The popularity of the sport is growing no matter where you are. Heck,
I made a kid in Poland (The other Adam Gockowski) a Tribe fan by showing him
many pictures and videos of the team. The World Baseball Classic started off
slow in 2006 but has gain more interest during its second campaign in 2009. The
2013 World Baseball Classic has expanded to a 28 team format, including an Israel
team.
But Olympic Baseball is no more.
My question to my readers is if baseball is gaining
popularity across the globe, then why couldn’t Olympic Baseball gain any popularity?
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I truthfully wish I had a real answer for this question
because I don’t. If I had to make an educated guess on why, this is what I
would say….
Major League Baseball over shadows the Olympics for players
& coaches. The Summer Olympics are held in the middle of MLB’s regular season;
which if a player wanted to go play for their country, they would miss a large
amount of time. There are players from all over the world that plays in the Bigs.
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What means more; A Gold metal or World Series ring? If the
Olympics still had baseball that would actually be a real question for players
to ask themselves. The Olympics games are traditionally held in the late half
of the summer, which many MLB teams are still fighting for a spot in October.
Say what you want about the Tribe, but we are still in it as
of today. If Jason Kipnis and Chris Perez went to London to play for America,
the Tribe would be in trouble. Many, if not every, MLB club would face the same
issue too.
Olympic Basketball has it pretty easy because of the NBA
season ending in June. Gaining popularity for an Olympic sport that has the
greatest of all time playing in it is not a problem at all. USA Basketball has
Hall of Famers, while baseball had minor leaguers.
There is nothing that anyone can really do about it, it is
what it is. I wish that we could watch ‘Merica win the gold, but I understand
why there is no more baseball in the summer games.
I guess we can still watch basketball take the gold…unless
LeBron makes a decision to take his talents to South Korea.