Monday, August 30, 2004

A "Quota System"?

NBC's Matt Vasgersian doesn't like the "quota system" of the current Olympic qualifying system:

As it stands now, two teams from each regional qualifying tournament got bids to come to Athens. In the Tournament of the Americas, Cuba and Canada earned spots while the Dominican Republic, Mexico and others made different plans this summer.

Each of those nations would have better represented international baseball than Italy or the Netherlands, who got in only by virtue of a weak field in their regional qualifier.

It boils down to a quota system and it is not in the best interest of Olympic baseball. None of us wants to watch what is supposed to be the best of our sport internationally and have to compare it to the independent Northern League.

It's funny how American Olympic commentators didn't get worked up about the qualifying system for baseball before it yielded the unexpected outcome of a tourament without Team USA. Once again: discrepancies in regional competitiveness are not unique to baseball, and if this means that some regional qualification tournaments are more competitive than the actual Olympic finals, perhaps the pundits should be paying more attention to them.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home