How Bad Do We Want Olympic Baseball?

Olympic baseball wrapped up today, with South Korea beating .... yawn ... zzz. It’s no wonder Olympic baseball was pulled from the London 2012 docket: even after a game of beanball between the U.S. and China, the tournament has been usurped in attention by such historic pasttimes such as team handball, beach volleyball and gazelle racing. (The Democratic Republic of Congo cannot be stopped in that last one.) It’s hard to find anyone who cares about Olympic baseball.
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↵Is that because MLB stars are not playing, or is it because the Olympics are not a compelling venue for the sport? The IOC, led by brilliant sporting mind Jacques Rogge, thinks Olympic baseball just needs some Jeter and Sabathia. But Major League Baseball doesn’t want to take a break in the middle of pennant races to ship its top players across an ocean to play for gold minor leaguers have a decent shot of winning on their own. Hence the battle. (The other option: move the All-Star break to August, extend it a week and play a short Olympic tournament. UGH.)
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↵Rogge now says baseball won’t come back for 2016 or ever if MLB doesn’t lend its stars to The Games. ↵↵⇥“Yeah, it’s a big factor,” he said. “We have [Roger] Federer, [Rafael] Nadal in tennis, LeBron James in basketball. We have the best cyclists. Ronaldinho is here in football. We want these guys at the Games. We’re not saying it should be an entire Major League team, but we want the top athletes here at the Olympics.” ↵↵Chicago’s a potential site for the 2016 Games. If Olympic baseball belongs anywhere, it’s in a Havana sandlot Chicago. Seeing the Dominican Republic face the United States in a gold medal game at Wrigley ... that’s worth the trouble. But that’s a perfect situation, and it still would be a huge headache for MLB with no real benefit.↵