New way to speed up Olympic baseball....

by cubsgirl2 on Jul 27, 2008 10:10 AM CDT

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-bbi-extrainningchange&prov=ap&type=lgns

Just interesting.. it's like some bizarro world baseball game. Kinda reminds me of Bugs Bunny baseball for some reason.

I understand why they have to do it. I hope that it helps gets baseball back into the Olympics.

I think it would be kinda fun watch too!

Why, oh why, does this have to be a magical 75 words long, i'm done. ;)

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or Al Yellon, managing editor (unless it's a FanPost posted by Al). FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable baseball fans.

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Also, in a related move,

in an effort to save time, the IOC will now start the 100 meter dash at 10 meters…

Stupid Olympics…

"Dad gum right this games gonna be played under protest. . . I guarantee this is gonna be one protest that's upheld." --Hawk Harrelson, 6/24/07

by RynoHoF on Jul 27, 2008 12:58 PM CDT reply actions

I saw that too...

and was going to post about it. glad you beat me to it.
I think it’s goofy, but my reasons may be just as goofy to some of you.

I don’t think baseball belongs in the Olympics in the first place. (I have an odd take on the Olympics in general). If you have to change a game in order to have it accomodate the Olympics then don’t have it in there.
I sure hope this new rule doesn’t catch Bud Selig’s fancy!

here’s my odd take on the Olympics…....
It’s called the Olympics G A M E S….not the Olympics S P O R T S.
By my own weird definition of game vs sport, baseball and hockey shouldn’t be in the Olympics. They’re sports.
I’d rather see golf in the Olympics…that’s not a sport….it’s a game.
(I’m gonna catch some heat for this whole thing but I don’t care!)

To me a sport has to have both offense and defense….and some kind of object involved…a ball or puck or something. (I’m a little flexible on this but not much…i’ll call boxing a sport. even there is no ball).
And you have to break a sweat by playing it in order to be a sport…eliminating golf.
Golf has a ball but no defense or offense…it’s a game.
Darts…is a game….there actually is both offense and defense (loosely) but you don’t break a sweat. It belongs in the Olympics! ( I warned you that this was goofy!)

Anyway, back to the subject about this strange rule change of baseball just for the the Olympics. I’m just too much of a purist to take a liking to it. Everything these days has to accomodate TV or scheduling or some other thing. nothing revolves around the game itself.

Did the Olympic gods not know that baseball, hockey and the like can end up in a tie or overtime or extra innings, etc when they decided to have them as part of the GAMES?
I’d rather see TV and hotel accomodations and the rest of the behind the scenes stuff revolve around the games.
What happens when, even starting extra innings with 2 men on, it still takes 18 innings?
It could happen…and I hope it does.

"I wouldn't be a part of any club that would have me as a member" : Groucho Marx

by Dave Pendleton on Jul 27, 2008 1:42 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs

I'd rather

Not see the Olympics…oh wait my plans exactly!

Saved myself 6 paragraphs!

by StevenABQ on Jul 28, 2008 12:38 PM CDT up reply actions

That's the rule they use in NCAA Softball

After X innings, the team starts with a runner on second.

by Texas Wahoo on Jul 27, 2008 4:19 PM CDT reply actions

It's still ridiculous.

Why not just have a Home Run Derby? That’d be more interesting, anyway.

"That's my opinion and if you don't like it, well, I have others." ~ Groucho Marx

by Al Yellon on Jul 27, 2008 5:35 PM CDT up reply actions

Yeah, and in the games I've seen...

It doesn’t really fix anything. The first person up bunts, one out. Then there’s a sac fly or a hit. Run scores. Nothing really happens after that, and then the next half-inning the home team does the same thing. The result is they keep playing.

I guess by changing the rule to first and second at the start, then you’re talking about a chance to get two runs easily, or a double play basically ending the inning, but still, good teams are always going to get at least one in that scenario.

"Whoever heard of the Cubs losing a game they had to have?" - Frank Chance

by STLCubFan on Jul 28, 2008 10:35 AM CDT up reply actions

And then they sacrifice and..

... the same thing happens.

"That's my opinion and if you don't like it, well, I have others." ~ Groucho Marx

by Al Yellon on Jul 28, 2008 10:47 AM CDT up reply actions

who really cares about the olympics anymore anyway?

it’s just a way for Europe to win a bunch of useless medals in a bunch of Sports Americans (and most of the rest of the world) stopped caring about long ago so they can make themselves feel relevant again.

if this really was a WORLD sports event, they’d have sports like baseball, cricket and rugby. all of which are massively popular throughout large parts of the planet.. just not in Switzerland, which seems to be the only country any members of the IOC have ever been to.

all in all, they can do whatever they like, ‘cuz i for one won’t really be watching anything besides basketball highlights on sportscenter in between baseball replays.

by Petrie000 on Jul 27, 2008 8:43 PM CDT reply actions

Good riddance...

...to Olympic baseball after this year. Nobody, from fans to players to execs, really considered the Olympics to be a world championship. It’s the same for almost all other major team sports, except hockey and, to a lesser degree, basketball. Even the sports that so many Americans ignore, such as soccer and rugby, have their own World Cups and generally shun the Olympics. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that team sports generally spawned leagues as opposed to a series of "events" like track or swimming or…ping-pong.

Although they did a pretty mediocre job with scheduling and format, the World Baseball Classic is the only real attempt, ever, at an international baseball championship. MLB must find a way to ensure that the participating countries would send full-strength teams that gave a 100% effort. Of course, this being MLB, they’re going to hold it during spring training again next year so we’ll probably see a number of players, especially pitchers, duck it.

Perhaps the best time to stage the tournament, when you could guarantee full-strength squads and better effort, would be mid-season. Although MLB is so incredibly resistant to change to make it unlikely anytime soon, switching the tournament to mid-season wouldn’t be that difficult…hold a preliminary/qualifying round in March, so the better countries can slaughter the Netherlands, Australia, etc., then have the finals in place of the All-Star game. The way they have it set up now, with quarterfinal groups as opposed to brackets, the final stage will only take about a week to play…so just do that instead of the all-star game every four years. Personally, I’d rather watch the Dominican or Japanese guys playing together as a nation, or those mysterious Cubans, for 10 or 15 total games than one glorified exhibition game year-in and year-out. As a fan of baseball generally, beyond just the Cubs, a true international competition holds a lot more interest for me than the average MLB game.

We sell spatulas...and that's all.

by LaddieRenfroe on Jul 28, 2008 12:13 AM CDT reply actions

I like that idea

i mean, the All-Star game’s no fun anymore anyways. i don;t know how it would mesh with the japanese season, but it’s worth a look.

if you do it like they do the (shudder) World Cup, than it would work even better. basically you have a three-year series of international games, like a 3 to 5 game series between each country, to both raise the profile of baseball around the world and to count as a qualifying round. than you have the teams that make the semi-finals (which will admittedly be rather predictable the first few times) play that round during spring training or something, than the final 3 game series over what was the All-Star break. granted you’d need to extend it out to a week or so, but each pitcher would only have to go 5 innings or so before the bullpen took over.

it might backfire completely, or maybe it would help baseball expand into new places like Europe and further into Asia. unfortunately MLB would have to foot the bill for most of it, since Japan doesn;t have a central commisioner and the carribean leagues are barely scratching by as it is. still, it would be a fun thing to see.

by Petrie000 on Jul 28, 2008 3:48 AM CDT up reply actions

It can't be expanded...

...beyond the current format because MLB and NPB (the big pro leagues) won’t risk their players (i.e. enormous investments) any more than is absolutely necessary. Rather, the teams understand the importance of expanding interest in the game internationally and willing to make a commitment but they already gripe now about losing guys for a couple weeks in spring training. So any attempt to expand the format of the tournament, such as with a World Cup style qualifying phase or adding series instead of single games, would likely be shot down.

A second argument against a long extended qualifying round is that it simply isn’t needed. At the most, only 20-25 nations can or would field teams, as opposed to something like the soccer World Cup, where every single sovereign nation on earth is trying to qualify. Moreover, within those 20-25 nations, there are enormous gaps in quality – the US shouldn’t have to play five or seven games to prove that it’s better than Italy and doing so would be a waste of time. Even with half-strength teams playing a handful games, the legitimate contenders should easily be able to dismiss the second-rate national teams. In turn, that allows MLB to set up the “real tournament”, the last eight, in a way that encourages maximum participation and effort from the players, at time when fans will pay more attention, and without overburdening the pro teams with scheduling conflicts and injury risks to the players.

We sell spatulas...and that's all.

by LaddieRenfroe on Jul 28, 2008 4:55 PM CDT up reply actions

One pointless

Exibition game mid-season is more than enough for me, thank you.

by StevenABQ on Jul 28, 2008 12:45 PM CDT up reply actions

That sentiment...

...is one shared by a lot of fans and boils down to this – a number of fans have no interest in baseball that takes any other form beyond MLB regular and post-season games. Still, I think that number is a distinct minority balanced by another minority, which includes myself, that would much rather watch Cuba take on Japan for an international championship than watch a meaningful regular season game between heated rivals, like Royals/Mariners or Reds/Padres. For the WBC to succeed, it needs to be presented in a format so that the interest of the casual fans, that lie between those two minorities, is piqued by the event and overwhelms the complaints about the event. If MLB continues to stage it in spring training and the US players don’t take it seriously or duck it altogether, then they’re just giving ground to the argument that it should be ignored as a “pointless exhibition”.

We sell spatulas...and that's all.

by LaddieRenfroe on Jul 28, 2008 4:37 PM CDT up reply actions

Ok

Good point, your right…here is my issue though. I love Baseball…in particular I love MLB. When the Cubs are not playing I will watch any game…and if its not MLB then I will watch College, etc. And if thats not on then the WBC or a domincan winter ball game. The point is that I think alot of fans of the game, particularly in the U.S. have a priority when it comes to the baseball they will watch…at this point I think most people will watch regular season MLB games first over a world exibition game. And perhaps I should not have been so obtuse as to call it a “pointless exibition”, but I’m not sure I’m all for sticking it in the middle of the MLB season. For obvious reasons. At least when its preseason…aside from the pitchers, position players will get some playing time. The only issue with that is that it opens up these guys to injury…in a much larger way than the ASG. Alas, I have no solution.

by StevenABQ on Jul 28, 2008 5:06 PM CDT up reply actions

Yeah...

...the risk of injury is always going to be the first criticism of an international tournament and, of course, you’re absolutely right in noting that it’s going to be a much larger risk than at the ASG. I guess you balance that risk of squandering an investment (i.e. having a player injured) over the fan interest and, more importantly, revenue generated by the event. My personal opinion is that staging it midseason maximizes both interest and revenue to justify an increased risk of injury. Would the MLB owners share my opinion? I don’t know, I couldn’t even guess without seeing the revenues from the first one.

Good point about the “priorities”. Most of us, myself included, would rather watch the Cubs than any other game. The crux is our second priority…if not the Cubs, would you rather watch other MLB teams, an international game, kids playing t-ball, a blank screen?

Oh…and it wasn’t obtuse for you to call it a “pointless exhibition” because that’s exactly what the WBC becomes if MLB screws it up.

We sell spatulas...and that's all.

by LaddieRenfroe on Jul 28, 2008 5:40 PM CDT up reply actions

Start Everyone in Extras With a 1-1 Count?

My idea is still stupid or “stoopid”. I think that’s better than starting an inning with runners on first and second. A 1-1 count is the count with which we started in intramural softball at Miss State. (Open, extreme sarcasm) What’s good for intramural softball at Miss State is good for Olympic extra inning baseball. (Close, extreme sarcasm)

"The big possum walks late." - Harry Caray

by memphiscub on Jul 28, 2008 11:05 AM CDT reply actions