Diamonds dropped in London

SI.com - Olympics - IOC drops baseball, softball from 2012 Olympics Baseball and softball were tossed out of the Olympic program for the 2012 London Games -- the first sports cut from the Summer Games in 69 years.

Baseball and softball will be played in 2008. So, the the sports live for now in terms of Olympics still.
I never liked seeing baseball as an Olympic sport. Good bye. See you in October.
This summer, being the trend setters that we are, it must have been news to the IOC voters that my boys, (ages 7 and 10) have yet to pick up a baseball throughout the summer. The gloves and balls sit here and don't get used. We go in waves with various activities, and the baseball wave has yet to hit in 2005.
I don't have a problem with baseball. I just don't think it is well suited as an Olympic sport. Softball is fine, if both the men and women were to play.

I don't think that this move is a "big mistake" as does Lasorda.

I do think that baseball and softball should be sports in the Senior Olympics and in the Keystone Games. But spare us of those sports in the Olympics. I love scholastic baseball and softball too.

Figure what would have happened if NYC got the Olympics in 2012 and the IOC pulls baseball from the line-up. They were boasting that Yankee Stadium would have been used as a venue for baseball in 2012. Hillary and company should have offered to use Yankee Stadium as a boxing venue. They might have been backing the wrong horse, so to speak.

Baseball also got nailed because of the steriod scandals, as well as the other drugs too I guess. Doping is a big, big topic in international sports and baseball has been lax to the highest degree. Pittsburgh is keen on "between the lines" and the other uses of drugs in the game as well. Those behaviors don't wash in the global world.

Furthermore, the USA Baseball team has been much worse than the USA Hockey squads. Plus some of the best ballplayers in central America don't play internationally either. The sport didn't cover all the bases with a strong line-up, so to speak.

The downside, no other sports were put onto the agenda as official medal sports. I figure that the UK pressures will get rugby and cricket as demonstration sports.

The most damage, however, comes to the entire process. The openness of the vote was absent. The bull-headed meeting organizers wanted to put this just to a voice vote and the IOC booed. The vote totals were not announced. The movement has plenty to learn and understand in terms of democratic leadership. Many of the IOC members felt skunked at the way the meeting fell apart as sports were being considered.