Olympic Games 2004 in Athens,Greece

Really Walter? Ich mache = I make. Is Ich mag than I love?

Grand Duke: I really don't know. I have no knowledge of English hospitals. :wink:

Cross the street like in England: look at first right :wink:

Ich mag = ich habe (etwas) gern, ich liebe (zu) ...

Ich mag Moselwein, den mein Wirt gemacht hat.

Ehm I'm embarrassed to ask ... but what's the translation of Wirt?

Here: host (hotellier).

Normally: Innkeeper, publican.

Aha! Thanks Walter.

I don' think, you are going to help me now with some translations [late Latin, early French] in an English essay about "Manual Labor and early medieval monasticism", aren't you? :wink:

Ehm ... well ... no . But if you want to know something where Dutch is involved, feel free to ask

Dutchland was still under water in those days - but thanks for your offer

:wink: Smart answer!

Let me interrumpt this intellectual exchange to go back to a theme that's deep in my heart: Olympic baseball.

Baseball is a quite entertainting -for most people- sport practiced widely. It deserves it's place in the Olympic games.

But certainly something's quite wrong with the Olympic baseball tournament.
It's not an amateur competition, yet it is -at best- a AAA level tournament, with only one team of near Major League talent: Cuba, and with several European teams who rely heavily on foreign born players (perhaps great-grandchildren of emmigrants) in order to lose with some decorum.

Since America, the continent who plays, by far, the best baseball, is allowed only two spots, you don't get to see great ball -and there is always a chance that one good pitching day dumps one of the favorites before even the start of the tournament. -as it happened with the US before Athens.

It's true that MLB is not very much interested in the Olympics (it's competition), but I think arrangements can, and should, be made to have a very good Olympic tournament with minimum or no damage to MLB.
It has been done elsewhere, in ice hockey. The best teams are pre-selected and arrive only in the second week of the tournament (the league stops only a little while).
We could have 8 teams classified for a preliminary round in groups of 4 and have the winners of each group join the 4 pre-selected teams for one last week of play.
The pre-selected teams should be the USA, Cuba, Japan and the winner of an American tournament which excludes both dominant nations.
The other 8 teams could be 2 Asian, 2 European, 1 from Oceania, 1 from America, 1 from Africa and the host nation.
Thinking about recent results, we'd have, in the first phase: Taipei, China, Korea, Italy, Netherlands, Australia, Puerto Rico and South Africa.
The winners (say Australia and Taipei, according to their Athens performance) would join the USA, Cuba, Canada and Japan (but with the American, Canadian and certainly Japanese bigleagers).

With this format, we could have had Roger Clemens pitching to Ichiro Suzuki in the Olympic games... and the Cubans facing a true challenge.

And if a team like Venezuela or the Dominican Republic classifies, it would also be a great squad... just started thinking about Venezuela: Johan Santana, Víctor Martínez, Bobby Abreu, Melvin Mora, Omar Vizquel, Maglio Ordoñez, Ugeth Urbina... not bad, eh?

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All in all, I don't think this dream is very likely to become true.
The International Baseball Federation is dominated by the Europeans, and they believe in their mirage. The gap is closing too slow, and the risk to have the king of sports out of the Olympics is real.
So far, their only serious ally -the most staunch defender of Olympic baseball the way it is, and capable even of organizing a boycott if it's dropped- is Cuba.
The reasons of the Cubans are strictly political. The name their baseball squad "the best team dollars can't buy", and their Olympic gold is a matter of National Priority for the Castro regime: beating the Yankee imperialists in their own game.

but, even if that is true about Olympics, there is still World Championship, that can change format. Baseball is probably only remaining sport that has no adequate international competition. Of course, in the beginning USA would be too strong with all MLB players, but same was case with basketball, and look what happens now.
Big problem is that MLB season is spread through all months that are adequate for organizing World Championship (or Olympics). So, basically, USA, Canada, Europe and Asia would be unable to organize tournament - only southern half of planet could do

The World Championship has been talked about, MOU, and March is the perfect month, just before the start of MLB season.

pppffffttttt....couldn't they just play a real sport like cricket?

Ich nicht spreche Deutsch!!!!!

That's wrong, if you want to learn german correct --
this way- http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=889402#889402

Just want to send an early reminder that the

Athens 2004 Paraolympic Games

are going to take place from 17th to 28th September 2004 in Athens!

ummm...usually when I make a feeble attempt to say 'I don't speak German' in german, and I say it wrong, that usually means that I don't speak German.

I wish we could get as good a television coverage of the Para's as we do of the main Olympics. I went to a day of the Sydney one. It was awesome.

yeah I agree with Wilso, we will probably have absolutely no coverage, although Croatia has some great athletes in paralympics - especially swimmers.

We get of course a daily summary, but only the opening and end ceremony plus the one or the other competition are covered live.