Women's Baseball to 2016 Olympics?

The International Baseball Federation (IBAF) announced yesterday they hope to add women’s baseball to the 2016 Olympic slate. Quoting IBAF president Dr. Harvey W. Schiller:

"There has been a great amount of talk about adding women's baseball over the past year, but recently the growth of the sport in places where baseball is already popular, as well as the request by new federations to increase the number of young girls playing in baseball, has led us to move ahead and amend our 2016 proposal."

Right. Because baseball—not not to mention women's softball—is so insanely popular all over the world they cut them both from the 2012 Olympics.

The press release cracks me up, so much so I need to continue to quote verbatim:

Currently over 500,000 young women play baseball around the world, with the number growing exponentially every year. Two weeks ago, Eri Yoshida became the first female to pitch in Japanese professional baseball, striking out the first batter she faced and touching off an immediate growth of young Japanese women interested in baseball.

As if hundreds of thousands of Japanese girls suddenly threw away their strapyas, grabbed their brothers’ baseball mitts, and ran outside for a game of catch! How anything can touch off an immediate growth of anything else is beyond me—isn’t growth something that is inherently measured over time? It all just seems a bit...overly cheery. Color me skeptical.

Look, I’m not against gender equality when it comes to athletic disciplines. You hear people complain about it sometimes, especially in regards to the NCAA, where maybe a University is perceived to support a women’s discipline just because they need to even up with the men. And even if that does happen from time to time, it's not necessarily a bad thing. And as for athletes like Danica Patrick (wait, are race-car drivers athletes?) or Michelle Wie, who reguarly compete against men, I say go for it.

But all athletic events are not created equal. Women excel at some (or are just more interesting to watch), while men excel at others. I dig women’s skull more than men's; the same goes for soccer, polo, fencing, and yes, sometimes even basketball. But do we really need gender equivalents in every Olympic event? Let's hope not.

For example, I'm sure we're all in agreement that the longer we avoid men's rhythmic gymnastics, the better off we all are. The women's event is punishment enough—and always on during prime time, at that!

It's not that I don't want to watch women play baseball. I do. A League of Their Own was cool. But surely the IBAF has better things to do…like making sure men’s baseball makes the 2016 Olympics.