Which has a better claim to be an Olympic sport - cricket or baseball?
By John Welford
@indexer (4852)
Leicester, England
October 1, 2015 2:53am CST
Baseball has been in the Olympics and is due to make a return in 2020 in Tokyo, but doesn't cricket have a better claim?
Cricket is played in at least as many countries as baseball and is hugely popular in many of them. It is played in every continent, and many competing countries have achieved a high standard. International matches are usually highly competitive and no one country dominates the sport.
However, although baseball is played in many countries, the spread is patchy - it is virtually unknown in Europe, for example. It is hugely popular in the United States (and one or two other countries such as Cuba) but only a minority sport elsewhere. If ever the United States was guaranteed a gold medal, this would be it.
The International Olympic Committee is interested in how "clean" a sport is. Although there have been questions about cricket in this respect in some countries, it is generally regarded as a drugs-free sport - can the same be said about baseball?
So my support is definitely for cricket! It should be able to knock baseball for six!
6 people like this
12 responses
@johnnydod (25)
•
1 Oct 15
Good morning John...Needless to say it HAS to be cricket there is no comparison
1 person likes this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
1 Oct 15
@johnnydod Johnny, I am not surprised by your endorsement!
1 person likes this
@OneOfMany (12150)
• United States
1 Oct 15
I would say put neither in. Both take too long.
1 person likes this
@TGRWorzel (47)
• United Kingdom
1 Oct 15
I don't think either should qualify as an Olympic sport. In fact, I'd remove all ball games and team games from the Olympics.
I would prefer the Olympics to be about the athletic ability of the individual
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
1 Oct 15
The fact that team games are Olympic sports does a huge amount for participation at lower levels in the competing countries. If you dropped all these, much of the incentive for people to join teams and aspire to Olympic glory would be lost.
@TiarasOceanView (70022)
• United States
1 Oct 15
Honestly, I think it is just a preference. I love both sports so it would be hard for me to say. Although I do know more about baseball, I do love cricket also.
Good question though.
1 person likes this
@Ceerios (4698)
• Goodfellow, Texas
2 Oct 15
Brother John - ( @indexer ) - Were they to institute tiddly-winks as one of the sports, I believe that I might have a chance at one of those medals. My luck, however, would be that they got away from metal medals and went to cheap plastic - so why bother?
@Rationalwriter (1813)
• Lucknow, India
8 Oct 15
I will say that among the two sports Cricket holds a statistical advantage!! More countries are involved in it. But logically speaking none of them should be included, the reason being the time span needed for a single tournament!!
@Believeinreality (20)
• Kolkata, India
1 Oct 15
Yeah, I mean cricket has survived for more than a century so it has build its own way to glories and feats. As far as Olympic is concerned Cricket should be one of their sports.
1 person likes this