Baseball And Softball Seek Return To The Olympic Games In 2020

Baseball and softball were kicked out of the Olympics in 2008, mainly because the sports are mostly played only in the Americas, but they've been given new life.

They're among eight sports being considered for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Baseball and softball—which are considered the same sport with different genders—are looking to make their return while squash, karate, surfing bowling, and three other sports are looking to get into the games for the first time.

Japanese organizers chose the eight sports yesterday from a list of 26 that had applied for inclusion in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Okay maybe baseball and softball get in, but I think we are really losing sight of the very Greek competition that started all of these—which is why is think the guideline for approval should be simple—can you envision Greek dude doing any of these sports?

Exactly.

Aristotle hanging ten on a long board—I don’t think so.

The other three??? Roller sports (basically skateboarding), sport climbing (my daughter was nationally ranked in this sport when she was 10) and wushu are looking to make their virgin appearance.

The sports that applied but failed to make the cut were: air sports, American football, bowls, bridge, chess, dance sport, floorball, flying disc, korfball (It's basketball for Dutch people...Really), netball, orienteering, polo, racquetball, sumo, tug of war (which was actually in from 1900 to 1920), underwater sports, waterski and wakeboard.

I'm all for new sports in the Olympics, but I would really like to see them resurrect a sport that was a part of the Olympics in 1900, the Tug of War.

Why not have a giant tug of war at the closing ceremonies featuring everyone who won a medal? With the losers falling into a huge mud puddle. I would definitely watch that!

If you want to know how popular softball is in the rest of the world, here's some sad photos of the Olympic softball site from the 2004 Athens Olympics left in ruins.