America's Broken Rings

A good chunk of the blogging universe has had its say on the US Olympic basketball team’s humiliation versus Puerto Rico yesterday in Greece. Eric McErlain mentioned this morning that he’d gladly trade a basketball bomb-out in Athens for a 2006 World Cup, and I have to agree with him — partially because of my hatred for pro basketball, and partially because our soccer players would actually care about the accomplishment.

It’s been strongly rumored that the NBA’s marketing department played a large role in selecting the US team, even as many of the best players in the league declined invitations for medical, personal or security reasons. Whatever the reason, the result of the selection process, according to ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons (the only NBA writer I read, and the sole reason I know anything about that league at all), was a doomed collection of big names rather than a team geared to win in the international game. The run of play Sunday revealed the team’s complete lack of outside shooters and its consequent reliance on the NBA’s signature one-on-one drive-the-lane game, while each whistle showed us star players that couldn’t come to grips with not getting the deference they’re used to from NBA referees.

But the basketball team isn’t the only American disappointment in Athens. Across the city, the Olympic baseball stadium is without an American flag for the first time since the sport was added in 1984, as our defending-champion team failed to qualify for the games — we lost to Mexico in the single-elimination playoff after going 3-0 and not allowing a run in the Americas qualifying prelims.

Even had we made it, though, the Olympic qualification setup would deserve all the bad press it’s getting. Greece got an automatic entry as host nation, despite not even having a national governing body for baseball when the games were awarded; their team is composed almost entirely of Americans with 1/8 or greater Greek ancestry. This left seven slots:

• One for the winner of an Africa/Oceania playoff (Australia over South Africa)
• Two for Asia (Japan and Taiwan)
• Two for that baseball-crazy continent of Europe (Italy (about half-Italian-American) and the Netherlands)
• Two for all of North America, South America and the Caribbean (Cuba and Canada)

If anyone can justify the gross over-representation of Europe in this tournament, I’d like to hear it. It’s not like those countries are going to bring loads of baseball fans to Greece — which we just might have done. Europe’s baseball development currently justifies one slot at best, and the extremely competitive Americas need a third. Even the Cubans are disappointed the US isn’t involved, despite the fact that this made them prohibitive gold-medal favorites.

The other disappointment in this games so far for Americans has been more media-manufactured than reality: 19-year-old swimmer Michael Phelps, touted as a possibility to win eight golds and break Mark Spitz’s 1972 record of seven, has “merely” two bronzes in his two events so far. I suppose it would have been foolish to ask people to temper their expectations, given that male swimmers generally don’t reach their peak until their early- to mid-20s, and give the guy some breathing room in his first Olympics. It wouldn’t shock me if NBC were to find itself in a ratings mess of its own making — people may well turn off the TV now that Phelps can’t achieve the goal NBC promoted so heavily before the Games.

Ah well. At least Americans can watch most of the team competitions live on cable, rather than NBC’s tape delay hoovering up every event worth watching — that may be the greatest improvement over Sydney for US viewers.