Softball out of the Olympics?

[Dakota]

I agree that we need to act to try to stop this. Not having an Olympic fastpitch team will hurt the sport as a whole.

I just want to make sure there is no misunderstanding...

The article is talking about taking softball out of the 2008 Olympics in China, NOT out of the 2004 Olympics in Greece.

As the host country, China, I believe has the right to add a demonstration sport, and if they are one of the few truely world-class softball teams, then if they decide to try to get softball removed, they would seem to have some influence here, if only because if they withdraw their team, they can damamge the competitiveness of the Olympic event.

This post has been up for a day now, and only one reply. I would have thought there would be some International qualified umpires on this board who might want to weigh in.