| OLYMPICS STRIKE OUT LATIN FANS |
| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Monday, August 01 2005 |
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| Summer is supposed to be a great time of year for baseball. But for millions of baseball fans in Latin America, this is the summer of their discontent. The decision by the International Olympic Committee to eliminate baseball from the 2012 Olympic Games in London has hit Latin American baseball fans like a 100-mph fastball to the head.
We know that baseball fans in the U.S. are understandably disappointed by the decision to dump the national pastime. Many U.S. fans consider the ouster of baseball and softball -- the first sports to get the Olympic boot since polo got yanked after the 1936 Olympics -- as a blatant act of anti-Americanism. There is also unhappiness in places like Japan, Korea, Australia and Canada.
In Latin America, the ruling stunned baseball fans in places like Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama and Nicaragua. In these countries, baseball is king. It is a national obsession that fuels patriotic pride, creates Hispanic heroes and gives sports fans something to talk and argue about. Baseball also counts with many devoted fans in Mexico, where soccer remains the No. 1 sport.
Not only that, Latin America is well-represented in the U.S. major leagues. All you have to do is look at the roster of any major-league team and you will see several Hispanic names. But Latin American fans -- as well as fans throughout the world -- love to follow their national teams. Latin American countries where baseball is popular generally perform well in international competitions, including the Olympics.
Consider the case of Cuba, which has won three baseball gold medals in the past four Summer Olympics. Cuban ballplayers -- among the best in the world -- do not participate in the U.S. major leagues unless they become defectors, like in the case of Orlando Duque" Hernandez, his brother Livan Hernandez, and Jose Contreras, to name a few. Cuban sports officials are so outraged by the Olympic snub that they are appealing the decision, and have gone as far as blaming Major League Baseball for baseball's ouster.
It's true that Major League Baseball has given the Olympics the cold shoulder. Players on 40-man rosters are not allowed to participate in the Olympics. And that's not surprising. After all, the baseball season is in the summer, the same time as the Olympics. A team like the New York Yankees, for example, would not be thrilled about giving Mariano Rivera time off in the middle of the season to play for Panama, giving up Jorge Posada to play for Puerto Rico, or allowing Alex Rodriguez to leave so he can play for either the Dominican Republic or the United States. (Rodriguez, who was born in New York to Dominican parents, could conceivably choose either team.)
Olympic officials are also partly to blame. They have insisted on having the best athletes compete, and gave the green light for professional players to participate in 2000. Some have suggested that Major League Baseball's lax drug-testing rules contributed to the game's ouster. There have even been reports that some countries conspired to eliminate baseball and softball because they are sports the U.S. usually dominates.
If it's true that other countries conspired to hurt the United States, then their reasoning defies logic. First of all, the U.S. has only won one gold medal in the four Olympics that have included baseball, and the U.S. baseball team didn't even qualify for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. They might have their last chance in 2008, before the new ruling kicks in. Whatever it was that led to the elimination of baseball from the Olympic Games, it left fans here and south of the border -- who will no longer be able to cheer for their heroes on their national teams -- crying foul. |
