If the United States softball team was as smart as it is talented,
it might have lost to China this afternoon in what was the final
game—and a meaningless one—in the preliminary competition. The U.S.
team's record was 6-0 and it had clinched the top seed in the medal
round, while China was already destined for elimination.
That also happens to be the fate of the sport in the Olympics,
tossed out of the games starting with London 2012*. The International
Softball Federation (ISF) has launched a campaign—"Back Softball"—to
seek reinstatement for 2020 at an International Olympic Committee vote
in October, 2009. Several factors appear to have led to softball
getting shut out of the the Games, but the one most frequently cited is
the American ladies' total domination of the sport. They have won all
three previous Olympic golds and are now riding a 21-game unbeaten
streak in Olympic competition.
But our softball ladies are athletes, not diplomats. So they put up
nine runs in the first inning and the game was stopped after five
because of what we always knew as the "mercy" rule. And they bristle at
the notion that, unlike Michael Phelps or the Chinese table tennis
players or, once upon a time, the "Dream Team," they should be punished
for their excellence. "The frustrating thing is we feel we're putting
on a great show and all anybody wants to talk about is what happens
when we're done," said Cat Osterman, the starting pitcher against
China.
Just eight years ago in Sydney, the American softball team lost
three games and barely squeaked by Japan for the gold medal. But unlike
basketball, where the gulf between the United States and the world has
clearly been narrowing since that Dream Team romp at the 1992 Barcelona
Olympics, softball has seen the American team become increasingly more
dominant. The sport simply doesn't have the money of basketball, with
those NBA riches, to spread its gospel and game around the world.
Monica Abbott, whose perfect game against the Netherlands was the
U.S.'s first-ever at the Olympics, says the other countries can't be
expected to catch up overnight with what is, after all, "the American
pastime", or at least the distaff version. Still, she can't understand
why their excellence is held against them. "[Excellence] is what
Olympics are all about," she said.
But the excellence doesn't assure a competition that is compelling
or even good entertainment (and some suggest it borders on the
unseemly). Theirs has been a scorched-earth performance. In seven
contests to date, the team has allowed only one unearned run and,
incredibly, just five hits—U.S. pitchers have thrown one perfect game
and two no-hitters—while breaking the Olympic mark for home runs by a
team. China managed one hit, a leadoff single today, but that actually
raised the batting average of the opposition against the trio of
American aces to .042. And not to be unkind to our very gracious hosts,
but China—one Gold Glove caliber diving catch by the center fielder not
withstanding—gave a performance in the field that could have passed for
a tribute to the foibles of the '62 Mets.
American dominance isn't the only problem softball faces in
convincing the IOC to reverse its decision. Though there are 131
national federations—Kosovo is the latest—for softball, the IOC appears
concerned that the game hasn't reached more places and attained higher
levels in those places it has already reached. And then there is the
the problem of baseball, which is also having its Olympic swan song in
Beijing. The IOC was exceedingly anxious to dispatch baseball—MLB
refuses to send its best players, has balked at Olympic drug-testing
standards and had the effrontery to establish its own World Baseball
Classic—and also tossed out what many of its voters view as women's
baseball. The baby with the bath water, so to speak.
At the IOC meeting next fall in Copenhagen (where the 2016 Games
will be awarded to Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo or Rio de Janiero), the
assemblage will consider the applications of both softball and
baseball, along with five new Olympic contenders--rugby, karate, golf,
squash and roller sports. At most, two will be added and while softball
will spend a few million dollars on its reinstatement campaign before
then, some of the other sports have a lot more financial backing.
(Tiger at the Olympics anyone?)
Softball's future as an Olympic sport is very much tied to its
future as a sport. The ISF reaped almost $7 million from the Athens
Games four years ago, which is critical to its international mission.
Moreover, it's far easier to attract sponsors when you can make your
pitch on stationery bearing the five rings. "You have credibility when
you're an Olympic sports," says ISF president Don Porter.
The players say they are entirely focused on Beijing, no matter how
much everybody else tries to get them to focus on the future. "We're
playing for the gold now," says Osterman. But the three pitching aces,
the third of whom is the famously photogenic Jennie Finch, are well
aware that Olympic glory may soon be a remnant of the past rather than
a goal for the future. "I get five or six e-mails a day asking," Why is
my daughter's Olympic dream vanishing," says Porter, at 78 a veteran of
the sport's battle to get in the Games in the first place. "We're
fighting for all the young girls around the world who want that Olympic
dream."
*NOTE: As several commenters have pointed out, the London games are in 2012, not, as this post originally said, 2016.
