The Globe & Mail: "When baseball and softball were first introduced to the Summer Games, the sports were there clearly on the International Olympic Committee's terms. There was no music, there were no hot dogs, no one sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh-inning stretch. This was the non-commercial church of sport, free of the vulgarisms that had crept into the North American professional games.
It seemed so . . . quiet. Not just quiet compared with the here and now, when paying customers are assaulted with audio and video and fun, fun, fun whether or not the game is taking place, but quiet even compared with the sedate, reflective days long gone, since those included occasional organ music, or marching bands at halftime.
The folks who run the Olympics, secure in the strength of their brand, aren't exactly prone to making radical changes, to following fashions or trends. But at these Games, there is more evidence than ever that the barbarian hordes have breached the barricades and are pouring in."