Stinks

Baseball and softball have been dropped from the Olympics.

Baseball and softball were dropped Friday from the Olympic program for the 2012 Summer Games in London.

Each of the 28 existing sports was put to a secret vote by the International Olympic Committee, and baseball and softball failed to receive a majority required to stay on the program. The other 26 sports were retained.

The IOC will consider replacing them with two sports from a waiting list of five: golf, rugby, squash, karate and roller sports. That decision will be made Saturday.

Cited as possible reasons are that Major League baseball players aren’t brought to the Olympics, due to scheduling conflicts of course, and that softball suffers from a “perceived lack of global appeal and participation.”

Both of those might well be true, but I suspect it has to do with a backlash against America, too. I’m not suggesting that’s fair or unfair or right or wrong—it’s just that I know human nature well enough to know that even the best intentioned among us tend to act out feelings of resentment and/or discomfort in subtle ways. Plus, countries and cultures come in and out of favor, go through popular stages, just like people. Fifteen years ago, the only Scottish accent you could find in American pop culture was the decidedly British James Bond. Now, even the frigging Extra Gum spokestick has a Scottish brogue. (Credit Mike Meyers for making Jocks* cool again.)

Then again, maybe base- and softballers just should have paid more attention to the uniforms worn by their beach volleyballing fellow Olympians. Ahem.

(PSoTD also suggests it could be because Olympic baseball is dead boring. I never really watched the baseball, so that could be true, but the women’s softball was really exciting.)

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* Jocks with a capital J means Scottish people, not like little j jocks, meaning sporty people. I guess Jock jocks who were on the British baseball or softball teams are pretty disappointed today.