April 24, 2015
NEW YORK （BY RONALD BLUM AP Baseball Writer April 23, 2015）
— Don't expect to see big league baseball players at the 2020 Olympics, even if the IOC reinstates the sport for the Tokyo Games. And new Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says the sport's international governing body should demand a long-term pledge from the International Olympic Committee before agreeing to return.
Baseball was an Olympic medal sport from 1992-2008, then was dropped after the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The World Baseball Softball Confederation hopes both events will be reinstated the Tokyo Olympics in five years, and the inclusion of new sports for 2020 will be voted on at the IOC session in Rio de Janeiro on the eve of the 2016 Games.
Manfred is maintaining the stance of his predecessor, Bud Selig, who repeatedly said MLB will not interrupt its schedule for the Olympics.
"The Olympics are a challenge because of the calendar," Manfred said Thursday during a meeting with the Associated Press Sports Editors. "They are particularly a challenge when the site is halfway around the world and the date falls in the middle of our regular season."
In 2008, only players not on 25-man big league rosters as of late June were allowed to compete in the Olympics.
"Conceptually, I think it would be good for our game, for baseball generically defined, to be an Olympic sport. I know there is some interest in having a baseball event in the Tokyo Olympics because it's so popular in that particular country," Manfred said. "I think it would be a mistake for our sport to make an arrangement with the Olympics whereby we go in for Tokyo and not have some commitment that the Olympics were going to commit to baseball over the longer haul."
On other topics:
PACE OF GAME
Manfred is pleased with the initiatives to speed the pace of game, such as the clocks timing pitching changes and between-inning breaks, and the requirement for hitters to keep at least one foot in the batter's box in many instances.
Through Wednesday, the average time of a nine-inning game was 2 hours, 55 minutes, according to STATS, down 6 minutes for the similar period at the start of last season.
"To the extent that there have been violations — that is, they stepped out — players very quickly got back in," Manfred said. "We're not interested in the letter of the law so much as we are the mindset of the players in terms of trying to move the game along."
DRUG TESTS
MLB still is investigating the positive Stanozolol tests in the past month for pitchers Ervin Santana, Jenrry Mejia, Arodys Vizcaino and Andrew McKirahan.
"We noticed certain similarities with the respect to all of these suspensions, the type of substance. We're looking for other patterns that may be helpful to us," he said.
(Read the full story on AP)
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