If baseball is re-added to Olympic slate, MLB players should compete

Story and Video by EJay Zarett
Photo Provided by NBC Sports

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9YR_axJofA

Syracuse, NY-- If and when baseball is re-entered into the Olympic Games in 2020 in Japan, Major League Baseball should allow its players to compete. In 2012, baseball was removed from the Olympic schedule and prior to that, Major League Baseball never let its players compete at the games. The main reasons for this were that one, the Major League schedule and the Olympic schedule coincided directly. In 2020, Japan and the Olympic Committee are proposing that the baseball event lasts one week, where as in previous years they’ve lasted two or three. This would mean that Major League Baseball would only have to stop its season for one short period of time, seven days. The other argument is that Major League Baseball is worried that its players will get injured at the Olympics. This argument would have been valid if not for the fact that Major League Baseball allowed its players to compete in the World Baseball Classic starting in 2006. This event, which takes in March, adds games on to players’ schedules in March, when players are not warmed up and ready for the season. This, to me, provides more of a risk for injury than the Olympics will.

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