Baseball in the Olympics

Baseball and softball played their last games in the Olympics this week, as the International Olympic Committee voted them out of the Olympics starting with the 2012 games in London. There are several popular rationales floating around for this decision, which came out of a 2005 secret IOC vote. Among them are the lack of professional players in the Olympics, and the perception that baseball is insufficiently international. Meanwhile, MLB officials and writers have debated baseball's place in the games, generally concluding (rightly so) that baseball is an international game worthy of a place in the Olympics. To read the news is to believe that efforts are underway to get the sport reinstated for 2016.

The NBA is the popular example of how the Olympics can serve the marketing and financial interests of a major American sport. The NBA benefits from having the summer as its off-season, allowing the nation's biggest stars to participate without missing the regular season. Baseball does not have the luxury of such a schedule. Most people would agree that stopping the major league season for three weeks in August or September so stars could play in the Olympics is a bad decision. So, too, is having stars leave their teams for the Olympics, while their less-talented fellows continue the pennant hunt. So what solution does baseball have? One possibility seems obvious, but has received very little (if any) press.

Major league players who become free agents the winter before the games should strongly consider foregoing one major league season and play for their respective national teams. This would benefit everyone - the players, each national Olympic team, baseball's case for inclusion in the Olympics, and the industry of the sport.

The major disincentive to this plan is that free agents would not want to defer the signing of a big contract. Free agency is a prize in baseball with a particularly potent and symbolic history, and players understandably do not forsake it lightly. Therefore, let the decision be voluntary. But let baseball encourage players to make that decision by granting these Olympians one year of major league service time, as if they had been in the majors that year. Thus, backup catchers would not sacrifice their pensions by going for the gold. Baseball could then decide for itself whether teams could sign these free agents before the Olympics, with the understanding that they would join the major league team the following season, or whether they would simply sign contracts the following year.

Players benefit from this plan by having the opportunity to be Olympians without (so) significantly hurting their professional careers. Not everyone would skip a season, but the more patriotically-inclined could. National Olympic teams would benefit by having better players on their teams. Baseball could point to the major leaguers populating various Olympic teams as proof that the sport is international, and cares about the Olympics. And Major League Baseball could help improve its standing and popularity in each host country by raising the level of Olympic play, and bringing the MLB brand to the games along with its players. Sure, not many All-Stars would be at the Games, but it would be better than none.

Of course, there would be ramifications of this plan. If it became popular, some players would want contracts which ended the winter before a summer games. Or players would negotiate for the right to skip a season in order to play. Baseball clubs could make those decisions on their own, as they estimated the interests of their team. Baseball would lose some star players from its regular season, but their status as free agents would diminish a city fan base's feeling of being abandoned. Perhaps some players would be pressured to play for their national team, and criticized if they signed deals which skipped the Games. Every Major Leaguer seems open to that criticism at the moment, whether they hear it or not. Players would have to stay in shape for a much shorter baseball season, but that is their responsibility as professional athletes. A player's career statistics would also be interrupted, but WWII did not seem to hurt Ted Williams' chance at the Hall of Fame. What if an All-Star tore his shoulder in the Games and missed out on a $100 million dollar contract the following winter? Those are the breaks, and each player would knowingly take that chance. Kobe Bryant takes the same chance with every Olympics as well.

The real decision MLB would have to make concerns the World Baseball Classic. While the ostensible goal of the WBC is to create a World Cub of Baseball, the WBC also undermines baseball's bid for the Olympics. By creating the WBC, MLB essentially told the Olympics that it was taking its ball and playing elsewhere. Soccer can support a World Cup and an Olympic tournament because it is the biggest sport in the world. Baseball cannot quite make that claim. But it is a safe bet that baseball players would value an Olympic gold for their home country over a WBC gold (or trophy or whatever it is they win). MLB is probably better served financially by pitching its tent with the Olympics, and finding a compromise such as this to allow major leaguers to participate, then trying to create its own parallel international tournament.