Following on from the recent comments by MLB and the IBAF about the sport’s Olympic future, as discussed here last week, the president of the IBAF, Harvey Schiller, has issued an ‘update’ message to all member federations. The British Baseball Federation has published this on their website and you can view it here. It doesn’t contain a great deal of new information, although it’s good to learn that tickets for the baseball games at the Beijing Olympics sold out “almost immediately”.
When you weigh up baseball’s case against some other Olympic sports in terms of global interest and participation, it’s hard not to feel slightly bitter about the way that it has been kicked to the curb. Baseball and softball have a strong argument for reinstatement (if there aren’t interior motives at work in the IOC over the issue) and we can only hope that the efforts by all concerned will be rewarded in due course.
