Re: I guess we didn't create it, afterall We used to play that in middle school, but I have no idea what we had "created". That was way back in 1995, and the American football kids would come over (actually this only happened once) and try to play in our soccer game and after they knew they sucked at it would pick up the ball and try to make something out of it. Most of the time when we only had cones as soccer goals, they would say, "let's play rugby.", but that one time we played sorta a make it take it like in street basketball and had one real goal. After the guys were done or the coach or something needed their part of the field, they came over and started to pick the ball up and we were forced to play the game or not at all. I think we picked 5 guys or maybe just three to play goal, and the rest - like 15 guys - were attacking the goal. Later on, the girls basketball coach and funny enough, the boys soccer coach the next year, came over and said, "I really like the sport you guys created." -Von Oh, and by the way, I am all for baseball getting the heave ho from the Olympics if it means a place for rugby - a sport I love much more despite never playing it, only watching maybe 6 games on TV in my life, and playing baseball as a youth. I just can't stand to watch guys stand around anymore. Plus, baseball is probably the second least global sport behind only American football. Also, basketball and soccer are my favorite sports, too. I just love the creativeness that pretty much only these two sports can produce. They are the only sports that you can actually use "street" moves like in the AND 1 mixtapes in a real game and not really disrupt the game too much.
I think that, at the very least, they should've kept softball. You see, to baseball players, the Olympic Tournament is on the same par as it is in soccer. It's certainly a great honor to represent the USA, but a World Series Championship is every player's dream. However, for softball players, the Olympics is as good as it gets. Further, the IOC removed a women's sport when their goal has for years been the broadening of opportunities for women. Softball actually wouldn't require a new venue. An existing soccer stadium could be retrofitted with not much difficulty.
If you can't get a way for the stadium to have long-term tennants, it's not finacially worth it. No word on what they have for Athens but Sydney turned theirs into a Rugby League venue while Barcelona's became a soccer facility appaently. They would certainly save at least $50 million in constuction costs from what I've heard. Softball has also been dropped for the Pan-Am games in 2007.
Now that I've thought about it, I don't care overmuch that they dropped baseball. I feel that it's a mistake to drop softball for several reasons. First, they're removing a women's sport from the program. And this after years of creating new opportunities for women. Second, the Olympic Tournament is the acme of competition for softball. For baseball players, it's an honor to play for one's country. But it's not their dream to win Olympic gold. Third, unlike baseball, you probably wouldn't even need to build a new venue. You could probably retrofit an existing venue, as the playing field is much smaller. Fourth, many have contended that America's suppressing dominance in the sport contributed to the IOC's decision. Well for one thing, the other countries aren't going to get any better if they're not given a chance. The other thing is that International Softball only adopted the 43' distance between the pitching rubber and home plate very recently. The NCAA has used this distance for years. Other countries really just need time to catch up with us. What's more, Japan just beat the United States at the World Cup. At the very least, I think that they should restore softball for the 2016 games. Baseball will be fine, with or without the Olympics.