Major league baseball does not believe in the Olympian ideal

0 Comments | Philadelphia Daily News, July, 2008 | by MARCUS HAYES hayesm@phillynews.com

The women give you Jennie Finch and Cat Osterman, dominant pitchers who are the faces of international women's softball.

The men give you Brandon Knight and Jeremy Cummings, a pair of 30-something minor leaguers contemplating retirement.

Unlike the NHL and WNBA, which pause their seasons every 4 years, major league baseball won't stop its season to allow A-Rod, Jeter and Ryan Howard passes to play in the Olympics. That, and a drug-testing policy that has been laughable compared with the International Olympic Committee's, helped doom baseball at the Olympics, where it first became an official sport in 1992.

A measure of MLB's arrogance: It recently made rumblings that it might consider stopping the season around the All-Star break . . .  if  the 2016 games were...