*The one thing about being a fan of sports across the pond is that Saturday morning is often chock-full o’-fun. Right now the hotly anticipated England-South Africa cricket series is on my computer monitor, with the British Open on the TV. If I understood cycling, I could flip over to the Tour de France. It’s all happening, and it’s not even 10 a.m. Anyway, these links appeared first at RandBall, your home for potential franchise cornerstones. *

I suppose I should be getting excited; the Summer Olympics start this week, and I’m a sucker for international competition of all kinds. Frankly, though, the event list for the Summer version of the Games could do with a bit of pruning; there are 26 sports – 39 if you count separate disciplines, like volleyball and beach volleyball, as separate sports – and some of them just don’t belong.

For example, soccer at the Olympics makes no sense. Soccer has an every-four-years competition of its own in the World Cup, a championship that’s more important than Olympic gold, and on the men’s side, countries send glorified under-23 teams. If the Olympics aren’t the pinnacle of competition in the sport, then why put that event in the Olympics at all? The same goes for tennis, which already has four championships every year, and road cycling, which has the Tour de France. And then there’s boxing, a sport that does not have a pinnacle, but if there is one, then the Olympics ain’t it.

The Summer version of the Olympics is also stuffed full of sports which have, shall we say, limited following. Fencing. Shooting. Canoeing. Archery. Of all people, I shouldn’t belittle niche sports since I love so many of them and can therefore understand their pull, but: Synchronized swimming. Rhythmic gymnastics, to say nothing of trampoline gymnastics. I’m not sure why these particular activities deserve to be in the Olympic canon.

It could be worse, I guess: baseball and softball were dropped from the schedule this year, and other possibilities like golf, cricket, and rugby sevens that already have championships in place didn’t make the cut. But I think the last two sports that were up for possible inclusion this year highlight the point I’m trying to make. Judo is an Olympic sport and has been every year since 1972, but karate didn’t amass enough votes this time around; similarly, squash stays out but tennis stays in. And if that makes sense to you, congratulations: you’re well on your way to a seat on the IOC.

On with the links:

*I’ve really enjoyed Grantland’s series on the history and future of US Soccer. This week’s installment looks at MLS’s Homegrown Player program, but be sure to check out the links at the top of the post for parts 1-3 of this four-part (so far) series.

*The Classical looks at team handball, a sport that America is terrible at, despite having all of the talent in place in the form of basketball players. I find this interesting because the same arguments have been used time and again for cricket (with baseball) and rugby (with football), two other sports that America has the talent to be world-class at, and yet is not.

*Didn’t like the American Olympic uniforms? Well, at least they’re not as bad as Spain’s.

*Caltech may have the worst teams of any athletic department in America, but they appear to have the most honest compliance department.

*And finally: because summertime is football season in Canada, here’s a 129-yard return of a missed field goal for a touchdown.