Olympics? World Baseball Classic? Everyone sleeps for four days?
Well, the All-Star Break is almost over, and as part of the festivities, there has been scattered reporting about the All-Star Breaks of years yet to come. The Olympics will A) be in the United States and B) have baseball as a sport in 2028, so MLB is trying to figure out how to wedge professional participants into the proceedings. There’s also the World Baseball Classic, which is awkwardly timed to be during Spring Training, but would be just as awkwardly timed somewhere else. Combine that with the fact that the All-Star Game itself just isn’t anywhere near a huge a draw as it has been historically, and there’s an open question of whether the status quo is the best thing for MLB, or whether something else could be warranted.
I’m not sure I’d be any more excited about anything regarding the Olympics relative to the current All-Star Break. I think the WBC is fun, but you’d need a longer break to do it right… which could be just fine, and actually make for a somewhat more interesting regular season where teams get a bigger grace period to let guys rest up from certain first half injuries and the like. Anyway, I’ll leave the debating to you.