Bob Kravitz Is Wrong Even When He's Right

It's been awhile, Bobby:

Americans, softball eliminated at same time

Here's the mocking irony of Thursday's shocking U.S. softball loss to Japan in the Olympic gold medal game: Maybe if the heretofore unbeatable Americans had lost this game four years ago, maybe if they were just a little bit less dominant than they were while winning gold in 1996, 2000 and '04, maybe softball wouldn't be getting the boot from the Olympic menu.

Actually, I agree with Kravitz's point here: USA softball's dominance has led in part to the International Olympic Committee dropping the sport.

It was a tough night, then, for the American softballers, who not only got upset 3-1 by Japan in the title game, not only failed to win gold for the first time in Olympic history, but they lost their sport as an Olympic participant -- at least for the time being.

Yes, the US lost softball as an Olympic sport, but that was decided months ago. Even though the title game was the last Olympic softball game, they did not "lose their sport" that night. Everyone--except Kravitz, probably--knew it was coming.

Baseball and softball are out of the games, but can petition their way back in for the 2016 Games. In the meantime, the International Olympic Committee is considering rugby, karate, roller sports -- what? -- golf and squash.

Talk about your NBC ratings gold mine: Coming up after gymnastics, a Tajik and a Togolese battle for squash supremacy. Tom Hammonds on the call . . .

So, the IOC should decide on whether or not a sport belongs in the Olympics based on NBC's ratings? You do realize that the Olympics are viewed worldwide, right?

This is not an American decision, obviously.

Then why did you write the thing about ratings? Do you do know your keyboard has a "delete" key?

But there is rampant anti-American sentiment within the IOC. And there's some residue from the tortured relationship between Major League Baseball and the IOC. MLB is not willing to suspend its season for Olympic play, and the IOC finds baseball's shoddy drug history distasteful -- although drug cheating hasn't inspired it to run track and field out of the Olympics.

Bottom line, the primary reason softball is getting the boot is the Americans are too danged dominant. Check that, were too dominant.

Is that the reason? For sure? You know this? The IOC says its because softball doesn't have "international appeal."

Back in June, HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel did a story about this. One theory presented in this story is that the IOC wants to get rid of baseball, and most of the IOC members link baseball and softball together, despite being pretty different sports.

Bob would know this if he he actually watched and read about sports, since, you know, it's his job.

We had come to hail America's softball coronation, and then to write the epitaph of a sport that is getting the ejection at precisely the wrong time. What would have happened in London? The U.S. would have put together a softball Redeem Team.

"Precisely the wrong time?" The Beijing title game was the first time the US has not won a softball gold medal at the Olympics. Yes, now that Japan has beaten the US, it would seem more parity has come to softball, but the decision was made months ago.

Four years ago after the Americans won the gold medal in Athens, outscoring opponents 51-1, American catcher Stacey Nuveman considered the shaky Olympic future of her sport.

"It's hard to believe that being good is a bad thing,'' she said at the time. "In table tennis, you see China, China, China. Softball is dominated by the USA. That's just the way it is."

If one team dominates a competition by outscoring its opponents 51-1, then there is no parity. Period.

Also, table tennis has been around for a long time. Countries have had plenty of chances to improve. Softball, by comparison, is very young. Should the IOC give it more of a chance to grow as an Olympic sport? Certainly. But a comparison of USA dominance in softball to China's dominance in table tennis is illogical.

The problem with softball isn't that too few nations are playing the game. Seriously, how many archery zealots are out there, besides bow hunters and summer campers? This is a U.S.-related thing, pure and simple.

Oh, yeah? Just for shits and grins, here are the results of the round of 16 for the men's archery event in Beijing. Out of 16 competitors, 11 countries are represented. Not bad. Here are the results of the round of 8. How many countries do you think are represented among the 8 athletes? That took a whopping .35 seconds to find, by the way.

Nothing like data to get in the way of a dumb point.

It's a moronic decision, not unlike the one IOC president Jacques Rogge made earlier in the day when he took issue with sprint champion Usain Bolt's post-race celebration.

For the record, at first I was annoyed at Bolt's antics in the 100m. Then, after watching him in other events, it was clear he wasn't showing anyone up, but having fun. My only problem with Bolt celebrating is that I just want to know by how much more he would have destroyed the world record!

Bolt's actions upset Rogge, but he had no problem with China's decision to revoke Joey Cheek's visa,

Um, completely unrelated...

or the underaged Chinese gymnast controversy,

Which is now under investigation...

or the fact that 77 groups have petitioned to protest in various protest zones, and all have been denied.

Why does Kravitz expect the head of the IOC to make political statements now after repeatedly avoiding politics?

If the IOC wants to get rid of a sport, how about the equestrian events? Four riders were booted Thursday when it was determined their horses -- their horses -- had performance-enhancing drugs in their systems.

We never knowingly took drugs . . . Somebody spiked our hay . . . They told us it was linseed oil . . . Where's my lawyer?

So that's why the horses had long faces!

(rim shot)

Try the veal, people.

There's just no good argument for upholding the decision to toss softball. The Olympics need as many good women's team sports as it can get. Almost without fail, women's teams in basketball, softball and soccer have provided the world -- and specifically the American viewers -- with some of the best theater in the Olympics.

It's utterly amazing to me how someone who is arguing for the right result can be so wrong in doing it. Kravitz is right--there should be many women's sports in the Olympics. The reason is that more women are playing more sports worldwide, and they should get the opportunity to compete at the highest level. However, the fact that women's basketball and soccer have provided "the best theater" has nothing to do with softball and whether or not it should be kept (and I'm not sure I agree with Kravitz that women's softball has provided the best theater, when until 2008 the USA had dominated the sport).

By the way, why does Kravitz single out American viewers? If he's right about his point that the IOC has an anti-American bias, doesn't that hurt his argument?

My head hurts.

If softball can't make the cut but roller sports do, it's fair to wonder what's next:

Croquet. It's not your Aunt Gertrude's sport anymore.

I don't think anyone has suggested this, but I'll go along with you. Have you seen curling in the winter Olympics? Not exactly running, jumping, or climbing trees, either (I do love watching it, though).

Beer pong. Finally, a sport I've been training for all of my adult life.

Stupidity is, too. Will that be a sport?

Bowling. Let's bump up the Hoosier presence.

The beer pong would do that. Look, there has been a movement to get bowling added for a long time, and it's not all that far-fetched. Why not bowling? (See curling comment above). To use another Kravitz example, archery doesn't have a lot of running, either.

Softball belongs in the Olympics.

True, despite your feeble-minded argument...

If that wasn't clear before Thursday night's gold-medal upset, it should be abundantly obvious now.

No, based on your argument, it's less obvious then ever. Let's hope Kravitz isn't the one chosen to make softball's case before the IOC.

This Really Happened

Fuck the heck?



This was on the website today at approximately 4pm (it has since been changed).

You think the headline may be a bit in appropriate for the Olympics in Beijing...CHINA??

Fucktards.

An Olympic Grab Bag

Ah, the Olympics.

NBC's coverage has had its moments. Here are some of the bad ones:

1. Go U.S.A.! Can the NBC announcers root any more openly for the American athletes? I understand that the primary audience is America, but announcers should be at least a little bit objective. It almost got to the point where the NBC announcers started using personal pronouns like "we" and "us," which is the ultimate no-no.

2. Go U.S.A.! And if the U.S.A. doesn't win, we were screwed! This has been dreadful, especially in gymnastics. In the finals of the uneven bars, Tim Daggett and Elfi Schnagel could not have whined any more if they were five year-olds. To refresh your memory, American Nastia Liukin and Yang Yilin of China ended up tied. Because of the tiebreaker rules, Yilin ended up with the gold medal. Initially, Daggett made few, if any, comments criticizing the scoring of both Liukin's and Yilin's routines. After the scores were announced, however, Daggett became more and more bold in saying that Liukin should have won. It was if he was told to be more pro-American.

Also, it took Daggett and Schnagel more than an hour to adequately explain the tiebreaking procedure used, which made it seem pretty clear they didn't know the procedure (they kept referring to "what the computer came up with," which made no sense once the procedure was explained since it's merely dropping an additional score). Back in the studio, Bob Costas then criticized the tiebreaking procedure as being "confusing" and "unclear." This was especially true when the men's vault event also needed a tiebreaker. Costas made a huge point to talk about that tiebreaker being more straightforward. Could it be he thought that because there was no American affected by the tie?

Here are the tiebreaking procedures for the women's uneven bars. You be the "judge":

Gymnasts are judged by 6 judges. Top and bottom score is dropped.

If two gymnasts are tied, the next lowest score is dropped for each. If this does not resolve the tie, the next lowest score is dropped until tie is resolved.

Each gymnast then must make her best attempt at drawing an aardvark freehand (Okay, I made that part up).

Pretty confusing, eh?

3. Go U.S.A.! If you don't win the gold, then you're a complete fucking failure! I'm going to let the video do the talking here. Context: American gymnast Alicia Sacramone fell off the balance beam, which may or may not have cost the U.S.A. the all-around gold medal. Andrea Joyce, remind Alicia over and over how much she sucks!

And for good measure, we have Lolo Jones in the 100m hurdles. The race starts at about 3:20. Note how long it takes NBC to show a replay that actually includes the winner.

I know that these failures were part of the story, and of course they should be told. But the overall attitude that the Americans "lost" the gold (instead of winning the silver) has permeated throughout NBC's Olympic coverage. And in the case of Lolo Jones, another American won the gold, but NBC wanted to focus on someone's failure rather than someone else's triumph. They interview Dawn Harper almost as an afterthought, and not until they'd already spoken to Jones (who, by the way, was extremely classy in a tough moment).

I don't want to get all Kumbaya on you, but winning any medal at the Olympics is an amazing feat, even if you were favored to do better. Winning a bronze means you're the third best athlete in the world in your particular event. Is that not an accomplishment? The Olympic ideal is to do your best. If you do and that results in a medal, great. If not, you should still be proud. The U.S.A women's swim team gets it, after their performance in the medley relay (interview with team starts at 10:10).

Perhaps NBC should take notes.

Best of Both Worlds

No, this is not a Hannah Montana entry.

Personally, one part of the Olympics I have enjoyed the most is the fact that Bob Kravitz has been in China reporting on the games for The Indianapolis Newspaper Monopoly and has taken a break from his spot on the Kravitz and Eddie show on WFNI 1070. While I do not listen to that show as much as another local sports talk show, I have listened more since he is not on the air. Its been nice.

The second best thing is that Bob is half a world away in China. Unfortunately, his columns are still being printed, albeit only every two or three days.

Since we have Yao Ming in the States, is there any chance China can keep Kravitz???

Ahhh, one can only hope.