For those paying attention to the 2008 Team USA olympic team, there's a good chance you're a bit disappointed with the way the team's turned out to be.

We're all seeing what the Team USA basketball team's doing right now with the NBA's best, they're completely dominating the entire pool of teams.

Now I understand the Olympics fall at a bad time for MLB since it's in the middle of the season, with the playoff races heating up. But we look at Team USA, and for those who really follow the game of baseball deeply, a lot of us have only heard of like 3 players on the team beforehand, and still, they're just prospects! They're still in their development phase of their very young careers.

But what if the teams of MLB sent a little bit more over, which possibly could have given us a little bit more "umph" to the team. How about some veterans of the teams in last place, or completely out of the playoff race (and I'm not even talking about household names necessarily). I'm talking about some backup veterans who knows the game well.

An example being Sal Fasano of the Cleveland Indians. I love the guy on my team right now, but as a huge Indians fan, I'm aware that we're out of the race to make the playoffs this season. True veterans of the game like Sal Fasano would be a great addition to the Team USA Olympic team. I'd love a mixture of the young and upcoming stars of Major League Baseball (Key word: "Upcoming"), as well as seasoned veterans.

Another example would be Kenji Johjima of the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners are disappointed with the guy and are possibly expecting too much of the guy, when the future catcher of the Mariners organization is Jeff Clement, who's already up at the big league level. The Mariners don't have much of a plan for Kenji, so sending him to the 2008 Olympic squad would have been good.

Anyone agree?

You realize Johjima isn't American, and if he went to the olympics would most likely not play for team USA, right?

They are getting rid of baseball and softball in the Oylmpics. It won't be back for at least 8 to 12 years. You can't send a player thats on your 40 man roster too, thats why the WBC was made basically.

Oh, true. But it was just an example.

Are they really?? How'd you hear?

NBC has said it several times.

I think softball should stay, I'm no fan of it, but it's not like there's a pro league or anything.

They got rid of it in 2005 but I'm sure they'll vote it back in for 2016. Bud Selig has said that if the 2016 games end up in Chicago (vote is next year), there's a chance that MLB will have an extended All-star Break so that the superstars will have the chance to play for their home country.

I wouldn't mind seeing it like they have for olympic soccer. Soccer it's under 23 other than 3 players you can have over 23 (I.e. Ronaldinho is playing for Brazil in the Olympics)

The problem is Cuba, they have major league caliber players there, but they won't let them out to play in the bigs, so all of them dominate in the olympics

That's a bigger BS than baseball. And it's only because the US dominates so much. But I prefer the WBC over Olympic baseball.

Agreed.

there is a league but there are only 6 teams I think? only 24 players get drafted each year. its terrible

I just don't see a reason to not have it. MLB season is an issue for olympic baseball, but what's in the way of softball? I mean sure softball isn't popular, but neither is watching someone shoot an airsoft rifle but that's in the olympics.

MLB's gotta go on some sort of hiatus during the olympics. I know that's inconvenient, but baseball really is a world sport and should be played during the olympics. I think it'd be awesome seeing mlb's biggest stars playing for their countries.

I'm not sure I'd call it a world game, it's big here, Latin America, and Japan, but other than that nobody else is overwhelmingly interested.

That would be sweet.