A recent report in the New York Times discussed the efforts to bring baseball back to the Olympics. Is it even gone? Well, yes. Baseball (and softball) will not be included in the 2012 Olympics in London, but it could return for the 2016 Olympics in TBD. But it shouldn’t. Because baseball doesn’t need the Olympics.

I would also make the same argument for soccer, basketball and other team sports that have dedicated championship tournaments. (Soccer has the World Cup; basketball has FIBA.) The Olympics should be for sports that are not well-covered throughout the year, and do not have pages dedicated to them in the Sports section or even entire television networks.

For baseball, I am a proponent of the World Baseball Classic. But it should be limited to amateur athletes or, in the case of MLB, players that have not played more than 40 games in the Majors. (Yes, that is an arbitrary number.) Professional players should not risk their season (and their team’s fortunes) to win an exhibition game for their country. That is what the kids are for.

If we give it time, and we allow it to be an exposition of younger talent throughout the world, winning the WBC will become meaningful. Baseball is now a world sport, and as baseball fans, we should embrace the competition.