With a secret vote, the International Olympic Committee has shunned two popular sports. Baseball and softball have been dropped from the lineup for the 2012 Olympics, which will be held in London.

We don’t want to argue the merits of baseball and softball by disparaging other sports. But, come on, baseball and softball are at least as deserving of the spotlight as synchronized swimming. And while countless people travel south to Boston or Portland almost every day to see the Red Sox or Sea Dogs, we’ll bet there’s not more than a handful of people in Maine who have ever attended a fencing match.

Night after night, in countries as different as Cuba and Japan, baseball draws large crowds of enthusiastic fans. Softball, the only women-only Olympic sport, is growing in popularity. As an example of its increasing appeal, American Jennie Finch catapulted to international stardom after the U.S. gold medal win in Greece.

The last time a sport was dropped from the Olympic roster was 1936, when polo was eliminated. Given the anti-Americanism in much of the world, we wonder if the two sports’ roots in the United States – and U.S. dominance in Olympic softball – provided the catalyst for the vote.

In the end, baseball fans have other outlets. It’s the 300 or more Olympians who will never be and the Olympic Games that will suffer. The committee has dropped popular team sports in favor of, well, nothing. It failed to add anything new to its roster, while giving up a lot.

That’s a bad play in any sport.