Olympic Softball

[wmenorr67]

Just finished watching the Olympic Softball Gold Medal game between the US and Japan.

We lost 3-1.  What burns my hide is the fact we had beat Japan 4-1 in a "Semi-final" game.

Canada lost to Australia in the other.  But in the weird bracketing once they got the final four set the brackets were 1v2 and 3v4.

1 USA
2 Japan
3 Australia
4 Canada

USA beat Japan and moved on to the Gold Medal Game.  Australia beat Canada and moved on to play Japan since Japan lost.  Canada is done, no medal.

Japan beats Australia, Australia gets the bronze by losing.  Japan gets another chance at the USA and unfortunately for us wins 2-1 for the gold.  We settle for silver.

We lose one game in how many years and it happens to be a gold medal game against a team we had already beat twice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softball_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympics

Link above to the tourny results.

[Ezekiel]

That's why you play the game.

That said, the primary reason for eliminating softball is that it wasn't a competition: United States dominant.

I guess not...

This is better for the sport, per se.

[mtnbkr]

That said, the primary reason for eliminating softball is that it wasn't a competition: United States dominant.

So we should eliminate games in which the US is dominate?

Chris

[MechAg94]

It was all my fault.  I actually watched some of the game and must have given them bad luck.

[Iain]

So we should eliminate games in which the US is dominate?
Chris

Baseball is gone in 2012. Not that you dominate.

Seriously - only about 8 nations compete in baseball at the Olympics. The argument against cricket and rugby is that not enough nations take part in it - well Rugby 7's would feature very competitive teams from Fiji, Samoa, NZ, Aus, South Africa, France, Argentina, GB, Ireland, Italy, Russia and less competitive teams from Romania, US, Canada, Portugal, Namibia, Kenya and others.

Lose baseball for Rugby 7's. Or 20/20 cricket.

[Dannyboy]

Lose baseball for Rugby 7's

Absolutely.  That would be awesome.

[280plus]

It was all my fault.  I actually watched some of the game and must have given them bad luck.

I've done that with the Red Sox, usually against the Yankees. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the Red sox beat the Yankees and always felt like a jinx because of it.  In other words if the RS are playing the Yanks and I'm watching, Boston will lose. 

 

[41magsnub]

It was all my fault.  I actually watched some of the game and must have given them bad luck.

I've done that with the Red Sox, usually against the Yankees. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the Red sox beat the Yankees and always felt like a jinx because of it.  In other words if the RS are playing the Yanks and I'm watching, Boston will lose. 

 

Could you do us a favor and post when you will be watching a game at least a couple of days ahead of time?  I want to get some bets in.

[Ezekiel]

That said, the primary reason for eliminating softball is that it wasn't a competition: United States dominant.

So we should eliminate games in which the US is dominate?

Chris

That was one of the reasons given: a sport wherein a single country maintains dominance is not, truly, a competition and is not in the spirit of such.

[mtnbkr]

That said, the primary reason for eliminating softball is that it wasn't a competition: United States dominant.

So we should eliminate games in which the US is dominate?

Chris

That was one of the reasons given: a sport wherein a single country maintains dominance is not, truly, a competition and is not in the spirit of such.

Wouldn't it be more in the spirit of competition for the other competitors to improve their game?  Seems kind of weak to advocate doing away with a sport because one team is stronger than the rest.  Wonder if I can use that in the real world, "We should do away with merit based pay raises because Tom so consistently performs better than the rest of us...".

Chris

[Ezekiel]

That said, the primary reason for eliminating softball is that it wasn't a competition: United States dominant.

So we should eliminate games in which the US is dominate?

Chris

That was one of the reasons given: a sport wherein a single country maintains dominance is not, truly, a competition and is not in the spirit of such.

Wouldn't it be more in the spirit of competition for the other competitors to improve their game?  Seems kind of weak to advocate doing away with a sport because one team is stronger than the rest.  Wonder if I can use that in the real world, "We should do away with merit based pay raises because Tom so consistently performs better than the rest of us...".

Chris

It certainly undercuts the "lack of competition" vote when we LOST.

[mtnbkr]

Ok, I'm missing something here.  I thought the "lack of competition" excuse was because we dominated the sport.  I'll admit I watch little, if any, of the Olympics.

Chris

[280plus]

It was all my fault.  I actually watched some of the game and must have given them bad luck.

I've done that with the Red Sox, usually against the Yankees. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the Red sox beat the Yankees and always felt like a jinx because of it.  In other words if the RS are playing the Yanks and I'm watching, Boston will lose. 

 

Not a problem... 

Could you do us a favor and post when you will be watching a game at least a couple of days ahead of time?  I want to get some bets in.

[Perd Hapley]

What's wrong with losing to Japan?  Isn't baseball a pretty important sport over there? 

[Scout26]

The argument against cricket .....

Is that the matches would still be going on years after the Olympics were over.....