Just when I started to get a little excited about olympic baseball — afterall I’m planning to go watch some practice games in Seoul the first week of August, and the Aug. 16 matchup between Korea and Japan should be fun given the recent political floundering.
The Olympic baseball tournament will institute a new tie-breaking procedure in Beijing, beginning each inning starting with the 11th with runners on first and second bases.
Teams also may start the 11th at any point in their batting order under format changes announced Friday by the International Baseball Federation and
adopted in time for next month’s Beijing Games.
For example, a team that opts to lead off with its No. 3 hitter would begin with its No. 1 batter on second base and its No. 2 hitter on first with no outs.
Seriously, what the fuck are these people doing? Is this supposed to be some slap in the face of baseball on it’s way out the door? I mean, why stop there? Why not allow the teams to bring pitchers who started the game back in for this magical golden ball 11th inning? Or why not just have a home run derby after the 9th inning? How about installing big obstacles in the middle of the outfield or an extra base in short right field?
Federation president Harvey Schiller said the extra-innings change was adopted to save time.
“Extra-inning contests can bring about the most exciting results for players and fans, but such circumstances also make it difficult in the context of the Olympic program,” Schiller said. “We must demonstrate to the International Olympic Committee (that) not only does our game belong alongside the other great sports of the world, but our sport is manageable from a television and operational standpoint.”
Yeah, because the olympics are so fucking exciting anyway. Wouldn’t want any boring extra innings taking time away from weightlifting competitions, skeet shooting and everyone’s favorite — synchronized swimming.
The 12th inning and beyond would begin where the previous lineup left off, with the two hitters ahead of the batter scheduled to lead off that inning being placed on first and second bases.
I’m sure I’m coming off as a real purist here. That’s not really my intention. Change in baseball can be good, but the motives here are dubious and the timing is absolute crap. This really sours me on the whole thing. The IBAF used some highly questionable judgement here.
I think the U.S. team should seriously consider keeping its team at home. It’s already indicated it’s not very interested in participating by bringing what is essentially a low Triple A team to Beijing. How about standing up for the game here and refuse to participate? Why waste money on airplane tickets and hotel rooms in order to play in this pile of shit? Keep the money and put it toward promoting the 2009 WBC.
14 responses so far ↓
1 jackson // Jul 26, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I have an even better idea. Starting in the 11th inning, the offense can allow whichever hitter it chooses to continue hitting as long as he likes. Extra innings will become sudden death, even if the visiting team scores first. Innings one through nine will only have 2 outs instead of 3, and in order to prove the sport is worthy the cleanup hitter will come out in between innings and lift gargantuan dumbells.
Man, stranger than fiction sometimes.
2 Jackson // Jul 26, 2008 at 7:59 pm
By the way, thanks a lot Shinsano. Any chance I had of pleading with my boss to let me go to Beijing is out the window now. But I of course would have refused the invitation along ethical lines. Uh, yeah.
3 Simon Currie // Jul 26, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Yeah, a homerun derby would’ve been a cleaner solution, like the shootout common in hockey now, haha.
I guess they tried to make it like college football overtime where the offenses of each team takes turns from the opposition’s 25 yard line.
Btw, WBC is being organized by MLB and MLBPA, and Olympics hotel/village expenses are paid by the organizing committee, if I’m correct
4 Jonathan // Jul 26, 2008 at 11:36 pm
1 ball for a walk, 5 outs per inning. But serious I hate the DH just as much, DH’s female golfers look like athletes.
5 jackson // Jul 27, 2008 at 1:19 am
I’m going out on a limb here, but I think Frank Thomas was a pretty good athlete.
6 Kyle // Jul 27, 2008 at 11:52 am
I think T-Ball might encourage walk-off homers. Everyone loves those.
7 Shinsano // Jul 27, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Ha ha. Nice one Kyle. Wish I’d thought of that.
8 Joel // Jul 28, 2008 at 6:33 am
I don’t know…I don’t think it’s going to be so terrible. The college football sudden death system has worked out alright. It’s not a pure form of the game I guess, but it’s darn exciting. I think it could work out ok.
9 Shinsano // Jul 28, 2008 at 10:06 am
Why am I not surprised to hear this from you Joel?
I’m more at peace about it than I was over the weekend. Mostly I’m excited to see Stephen Strasburg pitch and I don’t have such a strong rooting interest that it’s going to kill me if someone loses by sudden death. It might even be funny if Korea happens to lose to Japan that way.
10 Simon Currie // Jul 28, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Basically baseball adopted the softball extra innings rule right? But softball is so low scoring and baseball doesn’t suffer from that so, yeah, this is totally unnecessary. (How much air time is baseball gonna get at the Olympics anyways, in countries that don’t really care about the sport?)
11 bigdaub // Jul 28, 2008 at 11:50 pm
at first i was bummed that baseball will be dropped from future olympics. now i wish that it won’t be played at this olympics because of this rule change.
i still remembered back in junior high school staying up all night listening to a 23 inning dodgers-expos marathon on the radio, and how excited each time some gets on base, knowing that a potential winning run is on base. with this rule change, where is the fun in that? might as well end it on a coin toss.
if they ever install this rule to mlb, i will need a straight jacket.
12 jackson // Jul 29, 2008 at 2:43 am
If they ever installed this rule into MLB there would be riots in every city in America.
And rightfully so.
13 vince // Aug 14, 2008 at 5:23 am
the olympics are retarded..
IBAF are retarded..
I thought harvey schiller was sane, but I guess he’sretarded too..
/I’m out!
14 Olympic League Play Recap » NPB Tracker // Aug 22, 2008 at 1:23 am
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