“Who is Ronaldinho?”

Fwembt is gonna be steamed.

If the Summer Games had been scheduled during the NBA season, the pros would have stayed home. And why should loyal fans who paid to see their favorites, be denied the chance? I don’t think any pros should be at the olympics. Despite what other countries do to load up with players employed by national functions, such as military service.
We should never have been sucked into this type of strategy. If the Olympics suffers from viewership in the US due to other countries bullying us with their pros, then it’s the Olympics’ loss.

I’ve indicated elsewhere what I think of the stupid Olympics, but why would anyone want to do this? So we could trounce Cuba and get a gold medal? What about the teams in pennant races who don’t have to face Lincecum or Lee or Peavy? Or get to play the Indians when Grady is off playing the national team of Paraguay?

Why not just shut down the big leagues for a couple of weeks so we can all participate in this wankfest?

Postscript: Josh Hamilton going to the Olympics doesn’t do anything for me. At all.

I have no problem with Olympic table tennis. But baseball games are supposed to matter: i.e. contribute toward a 162-game season. What should it matter so much that American baseball players should abandon their season to play in the Olympics?

It seems to me Rogge is actually hurting his argument with the mention of football. The current football rules only allow for a finite number of professionals per team. By limiting, since 1992, players to being under 23 and only allowing for three exemptions per squad, the Olympics have essentially become the U-23 World Cup.

Just because Ronaldinho came this year doesn’t mean that professional involvement is that great. For Rogge to suggest that MLB professionals should have play while at the same time backing rules that prevent the best footballers in the world from performing is a bit hypocritical.

Hey Jay nice idea for a post! Your argument is long and well reasoned, but I for one am against the idea.

Maybe if they could incorporate baseball into the Winter Olympics…but then it would have to be in a dome or something.

Naw, terrible idea. So long Olympics, I was barely watching anyway.

If I were in the front office of an MLB team, my biggest concern with Jay’s idea would be usage of my pitchers. I would not be excited about putting my star pitcher’s arm at the mercy of a manager I don’t have direct influence over (see: Baker, Dusty). That’s not a deal-breaker, just something I think would have to be negotiated, like a pitch limit per game and a guarantee of no relief appearances between starts.

Overall though, I’d love a reason to want to watch Olympic baseball, and if it increases the quality of players throughout the world, then we’d see better MLB players over time as we do now in the NBA. Eventually, if there were enough international players, we could have an Olympic break in the season like they do for hockey.

My apologies for crapping all over this thread. I know I promised to shut up, but I feel it necessary to challenge a few assertions. This is becoming perilously close to a political argument for me, so I will try to choose my words carefully.

If the purposes of Olympic baseball are to (1) “put aside differences” and “nations coming together,” and (2) to elevate international competition and spread the game across the globe—both noble causes—and not to simply crush the opposition (viz., Cuba), why wouldn’t an all-star team of AAA vets suffice?

It seems disingenuous to ignore the nationalist tendencies of the Olympics. Elsandito mentions the flag-waving. I’m questioning whether the motives of having a dreadnaught baseball team are as noble as indicated. The Olympics are politicized, and some times the love of sport is surpassed by national pride.

I don’t know enough about basketball, but did the Dream Team really elevate worldwide basketball skill? It seems there were pretty good Balkan players, and South American players before that.

So I imagine David Stern leaned on his players to participate? Unlike MLB, the NBA encouraged its players?

I see it like this: Baseball is a major international sport (or game). Hundreds of millions of people across dozens of nations have some level of interest in it. It’s not an endemic sport like American Football. It’s much bigger than MLB, and that’s just how I want it to be.
I think it’s a good idea for the sport to continue to grow internationally. The WBC is a nice event for the countries in which the sport has already has a good foothold, but if it’s important to reach the rest of the world then the Olympics are the best opportunity at that. So I say, keep and grow the WBC into something resembling soccer’s World Cup, and get baseball back in the Olympics.
It seems wrong to me that baseball shouldn’t be in the Olympics, the pantheon of the great cross-cultural games we play. I know this sounds really hokey, but I hope is shared with the whole world, and that it’s not in MLBs interests to defy the rest of the world.
The IOC calls the shots, and it’s important for the legitimacy of the games that the best athletes in all of the representative sports participate. I wouldn’t have objected to the status quo, but I concede that their reaction is a fair one. The status quo does cheapen the metal process, doesn’t it. Say Cuba wins the Gold—they have to hear, “well that’s good but, of course ya know it wouldn’t have happened if the Americans had fielded their best”. That’s unfair to them. It’s time we put up or shut up.
I hope something it worked out, and that if there is no hope for getting baseball back on the docket for the upcoming London Games, that the hiatus is only that temporary.

Well considering I watched more Olympic baseball games over the past two weeks than Tribe games….yeah I’d be completely down with thits plan.

I think some kind of international baseball competition would be a great thing and should be encouraged. The question is whether the Olympics is the right venue for it. The World Cup in soccer is far more central to soccer fans than the Olympic tournament. It’s a great event and is truly international. It also takes a long time to complete, something the Olympics (two weeks long) can’t really duplicate. One of the things I like in particular about the Olympics is the chance to see sports that don’t usually get much coverage, but that are actually fun to watch (although one has to put up with far too much diving, gymnastics and beach volleyball for my tastes). Maybe the best solution for the big time pro team sports like baseball, basketball, cricket and others is precisely what’s been so successful for Soccer — an international tournament separate from the Olympics. I guess I’m arguing for a better version of the WBC, expanded to allow other times to grow into it, as the African and Asian countries have in soccer.

I think it’s time for a poll …

If Cliff Lee were to go to the Olympics this year and missed 3 weeks of the season, would any victories at the Olympics count toward his regular season totals? I would be very unhappy if he lost 5 starts and finished with 19 wins (and no Cy Young). Would home runs count to the regular season totals? For a time Grady was aiming for 40 HRs. Now that he is off the pace, would we be able to blame the Olympics and pro-rate his season totals?

What if the league batting leader missed a month due to injury, and then missed three weeks for the Olympics and finished with 20 fewer at bats to qualify for the batting championship? Would MLB still give him the award?

Would MLB adjust any schedules? Some of these guys could be on the road for 6 weeks if the Olympics are scheduled between two road trips. That is asking a lot of these players.

It’s hard for me to avoid thinking the proposal will ask these leading players to throw away part of the season, and make the back-handed statement to teams out of contention that the rest of the season doesn’t matter.

Baseball, like basketball, has really internationalized in the past ten years. There are Taiwanese players, quite a few from South Korea, an abundance of great players from Venezuela, a player from Colombia, Australians. Like the NBA—but perhaps not to the extent of the NBA or NHL—MLB is attracting players from around the world.

Did the Dream Team cause, or at least expedite, the internationalization of the NBA? Would it have occurred without Olympic participation of the pros? It’s happened in baseball to some extent absent the Olympics, Is it possible that the Olympics are not the primary driving force?

I have a problem with Giles starting over Markakis. Although I understand the prevailing argument in this thread is bigger than that.

minor point, perhaps, but what about who plays in qualiying tournaments?

I have bets on series and season series between the Tribe and other teams. While the idea of seeing Grady in the olympics is somewhat interesting, I think there have been enough valid arguments against — not least of which being my wagers — to keep me from wanting it.

I guess I’m for the idea, kind of.

I’m for it in the sense that I think it’s a good idea and would solve the problem presented. I’m only kind of for it in that I don’t care about the Olympics and don’t really desire a solution or even see baseball’s leaving as a problem.

That said, here’s something actually maybe productive I’ll bring to the discussion:

Some of the players in play here are young-young and good but still young. Lincecum, Suzuki, and Ziegler specifically. I wonder if teams would favor not sending these types of players to another country, away from their coaches, routines and the exposure to the “Major League Environment.” This is certainly my biggest complaint about LaPorta being there.

Obviously this could be remedied pretty quickly with a pool of players that team’s had to approve. Just anticipating one of the things that would come up.

However, I wonder if these sorts of players are inherently the best options because, as you said, it’s the exact profile of the kind of player who is good yet won’t get traded.