Re: Re: US Baseball Fails To make it to Athens Last I checked none of those sports are actually baseball. But shouldn't the gold medal winning team automatically qualify?
Re: Re: Re: US Baseball Fails To make it to Athens Cuba re-qualified after they won the gold in '92 and '96. And so it should be. As for Lasan, errrr... Lasorda, he should go back to the buffet table to drown his sorrows. The thing is that in a World Cup one can debate how many spots they can get. But when your dealing with a sporting event that claims to have the best in the world present, then it should be so.
Re: Re: Re: US Baseball Fails To make it to Athens ??? I was being facetious about the game belonging to the English of course, but if you've seen rounders, you'll see that baseball, to put it in very rough terms, is basically rounders with bells and whistles.
Tell that to the Dutch. Nevermind. I get your point and yes it does sound a touch unfair. So yes for all I (and shed loads of Europeans) care, blame us and have one of our spots. In Europe it's the Italians, the 'Greeks' and who else? Besides I don't think it should be a part of the Olympics anyway. My interest in purely money based.
The European qualifiers are Italy and Holland, plus Greece as the home team. Cuba and Canada will likely be the Americas qualifiers, and Japan and Taiwan from Asia, which makes 7 teams--it is an 8-team tournament? If so I'd guess the last team would be a playoff between Oceania and Africa, and I wouldn't guess Australia (which has sent a few players to the major leagues) would have any problems seeing off South Africa or Kenya or whoever. They should expand the tournament to 12 teams, give 2.5 spots for Europe, 4.5 for the Americas, 3 for Asia, 0.5 each for Africa and Oceania, plus the host team. Greece could actually have a decent side if they're composed of Greek-American players playing in the US minor leagues. I'll be rooting for them in Athens (assuming the US doesn't find a back-door way to get in), could they steal a medal with no US and no South Korea in the tournament? My guess would be Gold-Cuba Silver-Japan Bronze-Canada or Greece
How about: Gold: Cuba Silver: Japan Bronze: Taiwan (wishful thinking here? Asian teams are MUCH better than their European counterparts)
The Dutch. They're the best European team by far and were decent in Sydney, but there are seven teams at the Americas qualifier (plus a couple that didn't show up) better than the Italians.
Re: Re: Re: US Baseball Fails To make it to Athens The Norwegian women will not have the opportunity to defend their soccer gold either.
Host: Greece Europe: Netherlands and Italy Asia: Japan and Taiwan Americas: Winners of Canada/Mexico and Cuba/Puerto Rico The other spot is set to be between South Africa (African Games Champion) and the winner between Australia and Guam (South Pacific Games Champion) at last word. Canadian aren't doing bad considering the state of baseball here.
I would dare say that five of the teams at the Asian Championships were also better than either the Italians or the Greeks.
Lol, what a messed up qualifying system. And people ridicule the Euro WC qualifying. So Europe, despite clearly being incredibly weak, actually get more spots than either Asia or the Americas where the game is actually played?? After looking at the concensus, I'm putting money on Cuba for the gold. Depending on the odds of course.
I'm going to give an excerpt from Sunday's New York Times on this "tragedy." Strangely enough, the issue of automatic qualification for the previous Olympic winner is not mentioned, nor is changing the format. Here's the gist of the article: Does the United States need major league stars to reclaim the Olympic gold medal in baseball? Sandy Alderson, Major League Baseball's executive vice president, expects that participation of major league stars will be a topic of discussion among his league, the IOC, and the International Baseball Federation. For the tournament in Panama, only players who were not on a major league roster as of August 31 were eligible. "The IOC will have to understand that MLB will simply not shut down its season to accomodate an Olympic tournament," Anderson said. That rules out not only the top players from the U.S., but also players from such baseball hotbeds as the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. But after the shocker in Panama, some say, baseball has grown so much internationally that the U.S. cannot win with college players and minor league prospects alone. "This should be a recognition to everyone that baseball is being played well outside of this country," Luis Mayoral, a former Latin American liaison for the Texas Rangers, said late Friday. "The best baseball in the world is MLB, no doubt. But you have to start to look around. You have Japan, the Dominican Republic, and now Mexico. It's become like basketball. Nowadays, you have to go with the pros." The Latin baseball expert Milton Jamail, who predicted that the young U.S. squad would have a difficult time against more experienced international teams, said the U.S. "cannot get by without fielding its best anymore."
Three pages and nobody has mentioned how apropos it is that Mexico knocked us out? First thing I thought when I heard this was turnabout's fair play. Nobody else thought that?
Just looked at something about that: http://www.baseballgreece.com/olympic.html As the host nation, Greece can enter a team in any sport without pre-qualification. The Greek government recently established the Hellenic Amateur Baseball Federation for the purpose of establishing baseball in Greece and assembling a competitive team for the 2004 Games. Ideally, the Greek National Team would be comprised of citizens of Greece; however, it is unlikely that Greek baseball players can reach a level of proficiency soon enough to play competitively in 2004. Therefore, the Greek government, in cooperation with the International Olympic Committee, has agreed that any person of Greek descent who has at least one grandparent (from either side of the family) born in Greece qualifies to participate in the 2004 Olympics. While fielding an entire team that way is a bit extreme, doesn't seem too different than a lot of players qualifying to play for national teams in soccer because of ancestry (the one grandparent rule.)
Just to be clear, my understanding is that there is no "one grandparent rule". To play for a national soccer team, a player would still have to have that country's nationality. It's true that in most cases, one grandparent is enough to qualify for nationality, but one grandparent does not necessarily qualify you for a spot on the team.
What you're saying is what I was getting at, I'm just saying the Greek Olympic baseball is obviously taking it to its absolute extreme.
I get you. And I guess in some cases, the passport is just a formality i.e. Muzzy Izzet and Yildray Basturk for Turkey.
So from what I understand out of USA, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico only PR has a shot of going. How can you have either 1 or none of those 4 teams going. What a joke.
Canada and Cuba clinched the spots from the Americas. Both games were ended thanks to the mercy rule.
What a joke! So out of 8 teams in the Olympics, 3 are from Europe? What a farce! Why does baseball even want to be in the Olympics if it is going to be a second-rate tournament with second-rate players? It is about time baseball ditched the idea of being an Olympic sport and started a proper World Cup.
Re: Re: US Baseball Fails To make it to Athens That is pretty messed up. Baseball is a game in which anything can happen in a given game because pitchers (especially at the international level) can dominate on a given day. So a good pitcher on a lesser team can dominate a better overall team, and win. That's why there shouldn't be single elimination games in Olympic qualification. Almost every baseball tournament I know of consists of double elimination setups (winners and losers brackets). I wish it was the same for this.