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Should softball be an Olympic sport?
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Looks great to me... I didn't even know they knocked Softball out of the running!!!
314 Opinions
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Very nice. I'm glad you included that Vecsey evidence, Geoff. I was wondering if we should somehow include baseball in the issue since it too was cut, but they really are separate issues.
George Vecsey: Softball Is Losing a Chance to Celebrate
The unfair part is that the softball and baseball constituencies are vastly different. For the women, the Olympic gold medal is as big as it gets. Baseball doesn’t need the Olympics the way the women do.
The unfair part is that the softball and baseball constituencies are vastly different. For the women, the Olympic gold medal is as big as it gets.
Baseball doesn’t need the Olympics the way the women do.
SI.com: Is softball too American? U.S. growth may have hurt the sport's Olympic appeal
The IOC, which selects host Olympic cities seven years in advance of the Games, voted in 2005 to drop softball from the program in 2012. The sport will appear this summer in Beijing, where it has a following, but not in 2012 in London, where it does not. Only baseball and softball missed the cut, though the vote for softball was 52-52. As Rogge announced softball's fate, Anita DeFrantz, a U.S. member of the IOC, looked as though she'd been whacked with a fastball from Lisa Fernandez. "I cannot understand how, at a time when the IOC is claiming to advance the cause of women athletes," DeFrantz said at the time, "that it would take away a women's sport from the Olympics." "A lot of IOC members looked at us as women's baseball," International Softball Federation President Don Porter said on Wednesday during his visit to SI's offices. "Some national federations combine softball with baseball, and we were lumped in with them. Prior to the vote in Singapore, the IOC released a sports evaluation report looking at how each sport fit the criteria for inclusion and softball was right in the middle. I think a lot of IOC members never read the report." Many influential members of the Olympic movement, including former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, have come to softball's aid. Donna de Varona, a longtime advocate for women's sports, is another member of the ISF's Back Softball campaign. "To take this sport, when it's just taking root, and take away its Super Bowl is a death blow," de Varona says. "If the IOC is trying to make women's sports grow, the timing just doesn't make sense."
The IOC, which selects host Olympic cities seven years in advance of the Games, voted in 2005 to drop softball from the program in 2012. The sport will appear this summer in Beijing, where it has a following, but not in 2012 in London, where it does not.
Only baseball and softball missed the cut, though the vote for softball was 52-52. As Rogge announced softball's fate, Anita DeFrantz, a U.S. member of the IOC, looked as though she'd been whacked with a fastball from Lisa Fernandez. "I cannot understand how, at a time when the IOC is claiming to advance the cause of women athletes," DeFrantz said at the time, "that it would take away a women's sport from the Olympics."
"A lot of IOC members looked at us as women's baseball," International Softball Federation President Don Porter said on Wednesday during his visit to SI's offices. "Some national federations combine softball with baseball, and we were lumped in with them. Prior to the vote in Singapore, the IOC released a sports evaluation report looking at how each sport fit the criteria for inclusion and softball was right in the middle. I think a lot of IOC members never read the report."
Many influential members of the Olympic movement, including former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, have come to softball's aid. Donna de Varona, a longtime advocate for women's sports, is another member of the ISF's Back Softball campaign. "To take this sport, when it's just taking root, and take away its Super Bowl is a death blow," de Varona says. "If the IOC is trying to make women's sports grow, the timing just doesn't make sense."
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