I say we pledge to give up badminton. We swear off shuttlecocks and, if need be, poppycock, too.
I say we pass on canoe slalom racing. If Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty aren't seeking deliverance, who'll be watching anyway?
I say - and this is the deal sweetener - we promise to stop pretending to love soccer.
If we do all that, do you suppose they'll let the USA baseball team back in the Olympics?
Because, I've got to tell you, this seems sacrilege. The U.S. will compete in tae kwon do in the 2004 Olympics, but not baseball. Americans can follow their countrymen in fencing, trampoline and pingpong but will have to scout the third baseman from the Netherlands to enjoy a ballgame.
In case you missed it, and Bud Selig probably hopes you did, the U.S. was eliminated from Olympic baseball during a qualifying tournament.
That means the U.S. will not be defending its gold medal from Australia. That means Roger Clemens will not ride off into a red, white and blue sunset.
That means no more self-aggrandizing, xenophobic babbling from Tommy Lasorda. Okay, so maybe there is a silver lining.
Still, it does not seem just. There are very few mainstream sports we can claim as our own. There's football. There's basketball. Maybe Pac-Man.
And there's baseball.
This is our game. Our pastime. We make movies about baseball. Some even include actors who can throw a ball.
We have political columnists who get breathless over a hit-and-run. We have T-ball games on the South Lawn of the White House and Yankee outfielders trying out for the C-block team at the big house.
We invented the darn game, and now we have to watch Italy play it?
How the bloop does this happen?
Let's start with bureaucracy and see how far we get.
Perhaps the fault can be assigned to the qualifying system established by COPABE, which is a Spanish acronym that translates loosely to doofus.
This organization, which is apparently some Pan American baseball federation, was in charge of the qualifying tournament in Panama.
They set the tournament up with the understanding 13 teams would participate and the top two would earn Olympic berths. They decided the teams should be split into two pools, with every team playing four or more games. The top four from each pool would advance to a single elimination format.
Sounds great. Except four teams canceled.
And the format was never changed.
So nine teams were scheduled to play 22 pool games just so they could whittle the field to eight. And then it became single elimination.
That means Mexico went 0-3 and advanced to the quarterfinals because there were only four teams in its pool. That means the U.S. went 3-1 and was rewarded by playing Mexico in a winner-take-all game.
As you might have guessed by now, Mexico won.
But let's not place all the blame on our friends from COPABE. There also are the geniuses who divvied up the Olympic field.
There will be eight teams in Athens next summer. Two will come from Asia. Okay. One from a region that includes Africa and Australia. All right. Then there will be two from the Americas and three from Europe. Huh?
Since baseball became an official sport in 1992, the Americas have produced all three Olympic champions and five of the nine medal winners. The other four medal winners have come from Asia. Europe has gotten Cracker Jack.
Ah, but let's not limit our chagrin to our neighbors. Major League Baseball also has a hand in this foul ball.
While Cuba sends its best players to the Olympics and Japan is talking about sending its major-leaguers to Athens, the U.S. tries to sneak in with a jayvee team. I'm not suggesting MLB rearrange its season for the Olympics, but I do believe it could work a little harder on behalf of USA Baseball.
No players on major-league rosters on Aug. 31 were allowed on the Olympic team. Why? If a player wants to represent his country, why shouldn't he be allowed? Selig said the major-league season is too long to expect players to continue playing internationally, yet MLB sends an All-Star team to tour Japan in the winter. Gosh, do you suppose money is a factor in that hypocrisy?
MLB also does not appear to do much arm-twisting when it comes to teams offering their best minor-leaguers to the Olympic team. Many teams prefer their prospects rest or play in the Arizona Fall League.
Of the two dozen players on the Olympic qualifying team, fewer than half were listed by Baseball America among the top prospects in Double A and Triple A. Which means there was a lot of filler in that dugout.
So I say we have to do better. I say we agree to any deal possible if it means baseball gets a reprieve.
