MLB news 05/16/2007 7:44 PM ET
Olympics may hinge on MLB players
IBAF president says move needed to reinstate baseball
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com
NEW YORK -- If baseball is going to be reinstated in the Summer Olympics, Major League players may have to be part of the equation, one of the top leaders on the international baseball scene recently told MLB.com.
"The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made that pretty clear to us," said Harvey Schiller, who this past March was elected as the new president of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), the group that represents all the world's baseball federations. "It's the issue that's most outstanding at this point. That's not to say they we won't get back in without it, but we're working toward that end."
The IOC voted baseball and women's softball out of the Olympics two years ago effective with the 2012 London games. Both sports are still on the docket for next year's summer games in Beijing. But at this moment that could be their last hurrah.
Schiller, a former director of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) and at one time the chief executive of YankeeNets, said there's a window of opportunity to gain re-admittance for 2016 at an already scheduled IOC meeting in 2009. At that session, the Olympic governing body is expected to vote on giving permanent status to the remaining Olympic sports, plus review the application of baseball and softball to re-enter as gold medal competitions.
"I think there's a pretty good chance that with some adjustments we could get back in," said Schiller, who defeated Rolando Gonzalez from Cuba, 58-29, giving the IBAF a strictly U.S. flavor at the top of the IBAF for the first time. "If that happens for 2016 we'll also try to get back into the London games even if it's just as a demonstration sport."
The Olympics not only allows countries to grow the sport, but each federation participating in the eight-team tournament is given a $500,000 grant from the IOC to aid in that effort, money that will be irrevocably lost if baseball remains out.
Baseball entered the Olympics for the first time in 1984 at Los Angeles as a demonstration sport and was awarded gold medal status in time for Barcelona in 1992. MLB has been under pressure since then to include some Major Leaguers, but Commissioner Bud Selig has ardently resisted the notion of stopping the regular season to accommodate that happening or allowing a few big leaguers from each team to participate while the season continues.
In 1999 and 2000, Minor Leaguers outside the 25-man roster of each MLB team were allowed to participate for the first time in both the Olympic qualifying rounds and the summer games. It was in 2000 at Australia that the U.S. won its first and only Olympic gold medal. Cuba has won the rest of them.
Since then, Selig, who's current term as Commissioner ends in 2009 when he turns 75, has held strong to that conviction even though Nippon Professional Baseball allowed its teams to each send several players to compete for Japan at the 2004 Olympics in Greece. The U.S. didn't qualify for that particular baseball tournament.
Bob DuPuy, Major League Baseball's president and chief operating officer, said on Wednesday that the possibility of Selig changing his mind may be somewhat remote.
"The Commissioner would like to see baseball return to the Olympics," DuPuy said. "We consider it an important platform for the development of international baseball in regard to funding and grass roots efforts. The logistics of providing 25-man roster players are very complicated. The Commissioner has made it clear that he views that as a very difficult proposition."
As a substitute for the Olympics, MLB and the players association went into partnership to produce the World Baseball Classic, which includes Major League players, and was staged for the first time during Spring Training of 2006 when it didn't interfere with regular-season play. The next Classic is slated during March 2009 and is expected to be played every four years after that.
Schiller is well known behind the scenes in U.S. sports circles. Aside from his Olympic connection, he was the vice president of programming for Turner Sports and the president of Turner when the Atlanta-based media giant controlled the Braves, the Hawks of the National Basketball Association, the Thrashers of the National Hockey League and Philips Arena in downtown Atlanta.
Schiller moved on from there to the short-lived union of the Yankees and NBA Nets in an entity that spawned the YES Network. That company evaporated several years ago when the Nets failed to procure an arena in Newark, N.J., and Lewis Katz sold the team.
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