Baseball Has Been Very Very Good To Me
The relatively unnoticed announcement from the International Olympic Committee that baseball and softball would not be allowed as an Olympic sport in the 2012 Olympics is an outrage. Baseball and softball are team sports that are played all over the world. Softball and baseball are the first sports to be cut from the games since polo was cut in 1936. Cuba, Australia, Guatemala, Brazil, Spain, Canada, South Africa and Taiwan all spoke up in favor of allowing the sports to continue on the Olympic level after their, now final, appearance at the 2008 games in Beijing.
Baseball was a demonstration sport at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and 1988 Seoul Games and became a medal sport in 1992 at Barcelona, where Cuba won the gold. The Cubans beat Japan in the 1996 final at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, where the 32 games had an average attendance of 28,749.
While the sting for US professional baseball is not very severe, the close association of Women’s Softball to the men’s game probably doomed that sport as well. The concern seemed to be that US professional baseball players would not be participating in the games because they would occur during the middle of the Major League Baseball season. While not too many baseball players dream of an Olympic gold medal, for women softball players Olympic gold was the pinnacle of the sport.
Major league baseball is getting more and more international in its scope and it may be that one day the World Series is a true world series with international competition. The Olympics could have been an important step in this direction but MLB will probably just work towards international competition without the IOCC.
The impact on the women is more severe. Croatian softball player Jelena Cusak said the decision will cut off crucial funding for youth softball programs around the world. “These kids won’t have the Olympic dream any more,” she said. “They won’t understand this decision. We can’t explain it to them. They don’t know the politics.”
Baseball is played all over the world and there are certainly more baseball and softball fans than there are fans of other included sports such as archery, fencing, handball and curling!
Shame on the IOCC. Baseball and softball belong in the Olympics!
Don Mayer
Editor’s Note: This article was imported from our forums and has lost its comments in the process.
Actually, one of the two USB ports on the keyboard is powered. The first USB port that’s connected to gets the full power, the second gets the wimpy power needed for a mouse.
So if you need to power something from your keyboard, try unplugging the mouse, plugging in the device needing power and then plugging the mouse back in.
A bit clunky and perhaps not worthy of Steve’s designer flair, but it will work.
D
I don’t have one of the new ones myself, but I know I read in at least a couple of other reviews that the USB ports on the new keyboard can be used to charge and sync an iPod. Helps a bit, perhaps.
Sorry, guess I should have refreshed before posting. 😉 Just see David’s more complete comment.
None of my iPods (iPod video, iPod nano 2nd gen, iPod shuffle second gen) will charge or sync from the new Apple keyboard. I can use the USB ports to transfer data from a USB 2 flash drive, and from my digital camera.
I just bought the 2.8 GHz 24” iMac with the 2 gigs of ram. It’s super fast with Photoshop & Illustrator CS3. You can’t go wrong with this machine. I haven’t noticed any problems with games or graphics. I bought the wireless keyboard but wish I would of went with the full keyboard. The lack of the number pad is tough for gaming and number entry. The wireless mouse is great and heavier than the regular mighty mouse. I like the might mouse, but I disabled all the extra click functions and made it a one click again. I do love the tiny track ball!