MLB stars seen shunning 2020 Olympics

TOKYO: Top Major League baseball players are likely to shun the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games, the head of the league said Tuesday, as their teams are unlikely to let them play during the professional season.

Baseball, excluded from the Olympics after 2008 due to its limited global appeal, is due for a comeback at Tokyo’s Games in three years time after lobbying from Japan.

The Games are set to begin in July of 2020 and run into August, the height of the baseball season in both the United States and Japan.

Japanese baseball officials have vowed to put together a strong squad of professional players for the Olympics.

But Major League Baseball ( MLB) Commissioner Robert Manfred said the timing was likely to be problematic for players in the North American league.

“I do not believe that our owners would support some sort of a break in our season,” he told a press conference in Tokyo. “Continuity is really important to our competition,” he said, adding that owners see the primary goals as winning the MLB season, not international games.

Manfred said there had not been “any substantive di s cus sions” wit h t he World Baseball and Softball Confederation about participation of Major League players.

“We have not even been informed, for example, of what exactly the format of the event is going to be, how many days are going to be involved and whatnot,” he added.

The situation would be unlikely to change even if Los Angeles were to win its bid to host the 2024 Olympics as the MLB’s operations depend on the “continuity” of league games, he said.

The view mirrors that of the Major League Baseball Players Association, whose chief Tony Clark said last month that scheduling would discourage major leaguers from taking part in the global event.

Clark, executive director of the association, told a news conference in February in Florida that he saw “challenges” with Major League players involved in the 2020 Olympics, such as scheduling, according to US media.

Manfred was in Tokyo to promote the World Baseball Classic, held every four years in March, where national teams compete for their countries.

But even there, some top US and international talent have stayed away, partly because the event comes as they are already in training for the start of the MLB season.

Japanese professional teams are also readying for the start of the season but many of them are willing to let their players participate. — AFP