Olympics Find Going Rough On The Diamond

While major-league baseball seeks to repair its image after a bruising strike, Olympic baseball is trying to establish an image in this country.

Atlanta Olympics organizers, who begin taking ticket orders today, have a boatload of baseball tickets to sell and, it seems, little demand. Almost every time Olympic baseball is mentioned in Atlanta, it’s followed by the phrase: “expected to be a lowdemand event.”

“Too many people think of Atlanta as a Braves town and not a baseball town, and I take offense at that,” said Richard Case, executive director of USA Baseball, the Trenton, N.J.-based organization that oversees U.S. amateur baseball.

“I just perceive it as a matter of exposure,” Case said. “We’ve got to give it some hype.”

Olympic baseball is a relatively new phenomenon. Though America’s national pastime appeared as a “demonstration” sport in previous Games, it did not become a full medal event until the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. Besides its unfamiliarity, many people used to the superior play of the major leagues think the Olympic games simply can’t compare.

“It’s not the pros,” Case acknowledged, “but we’re going to have the best of the collegiate players. It’s a good brand of baseball.”

Case also hopes the chance to see some premier international players, such as the Cuban team, will draw fans. And, he emphasized, Olympic baseball tickets can be had for as little as $7.

With an inventory of 1.6 million baseball tickets, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games has already tried a few stabs at promoting the sport. Atlanta Braves season-ticket buyers were given an early chance to get them. And NationsBank Corp. is giving away pairs of baseball tickets to people who order their Olympic tickets with a NationsBank Visa card.

Payned

Is the news media getting on Billy Payne’s nerves?

In a speech to a hotel industry convention, the president of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games seemed less-than thrilled about the onslaught of journalists expected here next year.

Reeling off some of the impressive statistics of the Olympics, Payne noted that Atlanta will welcome 15,000 athletes and officials, 150,000 members of the Olympic family and 2 million visitors.

And, he quipped: “More than 16,000 journalists - certainly more than any city deserves.”

Wake of disaster

The Oklahoma City bombing has altered the opinion, previously held by many security and terrorism experts, that domestic extremists were not a potential source of trouble for the Atlanta Olympics.

“In view of what happened, all these groups are giving us some concern,” said David W. Johnson, head of the FBI office in Atlanta. “We want to spend some time figuring out what they’re about.”

Security officials with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games said the investigation in Oklahoma City bombing will be monitored.

“We can learn from it, and if we learn anything that could affect our plans, we’ll deal with it,” said ACOG security chief Bill Rathburn.

Since the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics, security preparations have made it more difficult to attack the Games, said Guy Sanen of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at Scotland’s St. Andrews University.

“The likelihood of a spectacular attack like Munich has been decreased,” said Sanen, who is writing his doctoral thesis on Olympic security.

Coming up

The Metropolitan Atlanta Olympic Games Authority’s finance committee meets Wednesday to hear an accountant’s report on the financial health of the Olympic organizing effort.