All of that hurt. So, after Beijing, softball is out of the Olympics. In 2005, like baseball, softball was voted out of the 2012 Games in London. Both failed in a reinstatement bid in 2006.
Unlike baseball (which has a reinstatement program but lacks marquee names), softball is trying like crazy to get back in.
Spearheaded by a campaign called "Back Softball," a year-old, 10-point plan aimed at impressing the International Olympic Committee enough to reinstate the sport, the International Softball Federation is making a concerted effort to grow the sport in the Middle East and Africa.
The next vote, in October of next year, will determine whether softball, baseball, and five other sports (karate, rugby sevens, golf, squash and roller sports) will be included in 2016.
By then, the ISF hopes to have changed the sport's profile as a U.S.-dominated, male-run, baseball-reliant entity - all of which helped run it out of the Olympics after a popular run that began in 1996.
"Potentially, all of those things are true," said ISF president Don Porter. "Really, what hurt us most, I think, was that a number of IOC members weren't familiar with our sport. I got the feeling they thought we were women's baseball. And, unfortunately, baseball has its negatives."
The stigma of baseball's lax drug-testing as well as the refusal of Major League Baseball to halt its season so Major Leaguers could play served as a kiss of death.
In 2005, led by a group of European countries, a 52-52 vote, with one abstention, doomed softball; only a simple majority was needed. Softball failed to be reinstated, 47-43, in 2006.
Notably, no European team has ever won a medal. The U.S. has won every gold, with China, Japan and Australia splitting the rest of the medals.
Also, of the 110 members of the IOC, 53 are Europeans, three Americans. None of the 15 spots on the IOC's executive board is held by an American; eight are European.
