By Steve Keating
AJAX, Ontario, July 25 (Reuters) - After the United States
lost the softball gold to Japan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics,
Laura Berg and four teammates placed their cleats on home plate
and walked away knowing they would never play again.
It was a symbolic gesture in more ways than one. The game
would also be the last played on an Olympic diamond, the sport
soon afterwards dropped from the Summer Games program.
While softball was ditched by the International Olympic
Committee (IOC), it remains a fixture at the Pan American Games
and on Sunday the United States will be playing in the grand
final.
The team that will take to the field in Ajax will be
composed of a generation of players that grew up with that
Olympic dream only to have it snatched away, and Berg, a
four-time Olympian and three-time gold medalist, will be there
as part of the U.S. coaching staff.
"All these young ladies grew up with softball being an
Olympic sport and they started their careers with that being a
goal," Ron Radigonda, softball general secretary for the World
Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), told Reuters.
"When it got taken out of the Games it was heartbreaking to
every single one of them.
"We really owe it to them to get it back in the Games."
Almost since the day it was cut from the Olympics, softball
has been making a pitch to get back in, and after years of
striking out it looks ready to hit a home run with a possible
return for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Baseball and softball top the shortlist of sports competing
for spots as additional attractions at the Tokyo Games along
with homegrown favorite karate and bowling, roller sports, sport
climbing, squash, surfing and wushu.
Each federation will make a presentation to Tokyo organisers
in two weeks time with the final decision to be announced at the
IOC Rio congress next year.
As part of reforms initiated by IOC president Thomas Bach
last year, Games hosts have the chance to bring in one or more
sports popular in their country to boost ratings and attract
greater sponsorship.
Baseball is Japan's most popular sport and the country is
the current power in women's softball making both attractive
additions to the 2020 lineup for the hosts.
"Japan is very competitive in softball and baseball. It
really is the national pastime there and because of that and ...
how well it is being played around the world, that we have a
great opportunity to get back on the program," said Radigonda.
"The competition level is very high, we are covering the
globe with players from all over."
One of the major factors contributing to softball's Olympic
demise was American domination of the sport.
Leading up to the IOC vote the United States had won six
consecutive world championships and every Olympic gold on offer
since the sport was introduced into the Games in 1996.
But softball has seen a major power shift to Asia with Japan
taking the Olympic title in Beijing and landing atop the podium
at the last two world championships in 2012 and 2014, beating
the United States each time.
One of only four women to have won four Olympic medals in
softball, part of Berg's job is to remind her young squad of
those glory days and good times.
"Oh my gosh, it will be huge for me," said Berg at the
prospect of softball's return to the Games. "I am very lucky to
have been part of four different Olympics and each was special.
"A lot of them will tell me stories that they waited in line
to get a picture with me and get my autograph, so it is fun to
tell them some of the stories throughout the years and some of
the rivalries.
"Every time I hear the national anthem it takes me back to
the podium, every single time."
(Editing by Larry Fine)