America should take its pastime and go home

It's official, baseball will not be in the offering at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

What a shame.

While the vote to drop baseball (and its distant cousin, softball) from the Olympic menu originally happened last July, it was revisited Thursday with a chance for reinstatement in time for the sport to not miss a single Games. Baseball will still be played at the 2008 Games in Beijing.

The vote Thursday went much like the original condemning action in July -- baseball is out.

So too, should be America.

In a show of patriotism for our national pastime, the United States should pull itself out of the 2012 Olympics in London, and any other future Games that will not feature the sport.

I'm not saying the U.S. should withdraw from all international competition, just the Olympics. It's time to prove a point.

If I were not convinced that this was just the latest in a series of potshots the international community has taken against the United States for doing the right thing in Iraq, I would believe differently.

When it comes to politics and international affairs, I try to stay, publicly, out of the mix.

Sure, I do follow national politics pretty closely, and I make a point to educate myself on international affairs that our country has a vested interest in. But I try to keep them out of my sports column because too many people use a pulpit they gained doing something not related to politics and then suddenly bring politics into the mix (Kanye West, Tim Robbins, Curt Schilling and Arnold Schwarzenegger are just a few examples). I prefer to take the Elvis Presley approach. When asked about Vietnam, Presley usually said he "was just an entertainer."

Well, I'm just a sportswriter.

But I can't help but believe that politics have tainted the decision to drop baseball from the Olympics. There is no other logical explanation.

Other countries know it's our national pastime. They know that it makes many Americans cringe to think that baseball isn't as important internationally as synchronized swimming, ice dancing, curling and ping pong.

It's more than highly possible that these countries are playing hardball (pun intended) with the United States because of disagreements in foreign policy stances made by the Bush Administration. You know that if Clinton were still in office baseball would still be in the Olympics.

It's also possible that we'd be bullied by the United Nations, but that's for a different column.

In foreign relations the United States can't just pack up and go home. If we pulled out of Iraq then many terrorists would not have to worry about the U.S. military and they could turn their attention to U.S. civilians. Not a good thing.

But the Olympics are not as important. The relevance of the Games has certainly been diminished in the post-Cold War era. Olympic ratings are down, and I don't know about you but I could care less about the Games anymore. I didn't even know the Winter Olympics started tomorrow until I researched it for this column.

That's why we should take our baseball, and go home.

See how long the Olympics last without this country's support. While the Olympics may continue to be held, they would hardly be the spectacle they currently claim to be.

I don't think it would ever come to this. I think if America made it known they wouldn't be competing in the Games without baseball, then baseball would be back on the docket.

But even if it weren't, I'd have no problem with the United States taking a pass on such "sports" as ice skating and gymnastics.

Football is the only sport in this country that Americans as a whole are as passionate about as baseball, and football isn't an Olympic sport. If baseball isn't either, what do we care if some other countries get together and anoint themselves with "greatest athletes in the world" status. We know the real truth.

Let's play some hardball of our own.