2021 Olympics Fan Guide: Everything you need to know about softball

With the sport making a one-off return to the Olympic Games this year, which teams and names are the ones who should have the most attention on the diamond?

After not being held in the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympic Games, softball will be one of five sports that will be either debuting or returning in a special one-off appearance during the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.

Olympic softball matchups will take place at the Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium in Fukushima, and Yokohama Stadium in Yokohama.

Six nations will partake in the event. In addition to the host country, the United States qualified for the Olympics by winning the 2018 Women’s Softball World Championship. Italy, Mexico, Canada and Australia all then earned berths through regional qualification tournaments in 2019.

2021 Olympics: Softball rivalries

While the rivalries in Olympic softball don’t exactly have bad blood, the United States, Japan and Australia are quite a part of the history of softball at the Olympics from its inaugural tournament in 1996 through its most recent partaking in the Olympics in 2008.

Team USA has for the most part dominated this Olympic sport, winning gold medals in 1996, 2000 and 2004. In fact, only the United States, Japan, Australia and China have ever taken home Olympic softball medals.

In spite of a bad loss to Australia during the 1996 Games, the U.S. went on to win the inaugural gold medal by defeating China in the finals. Australia took home the bronze that year.

Team USA then went on a major run, going on a 22-game unbeaten streak between the 2000 and 2008 Games. They defeated Japan in the 2000 gold-medal match and Australia in the 2004 gold-medal match. Australia took bronze in 2000, while Japan took bronze in 2004.

The U.S., however, suffered a major upset loss in 2008, as Japan bested them in the final of that year’s competition to claim the gold. Australia once again claimed bronze.

2021 Olympics: Softball athletes to know

Perhaps the most decorated athlete on this year’s U.S. Olympic team softball roster, Cat Osterman has tasted Olympic gold before as a member of that 2004 gold-medal team, as well as the 2008 team that won silver.

Osterman pitched for four seasons at the University of Texas, totaling 2,265 strikeouts (second-most all-time) in NCAA Division I history), 136 wins (sixth-most in NCAA), 85 shutouts (third-most in NCAA), 20 no-hitters (third-most in NCAA) and seven perfect games (second-most in NCAA). She was also a four-time Big 12 Pitcher of the Year.

Osterman then played nine seasons in National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), going 95-24 in her pro career with 1,260 strikeouts and a 0.91 ERA. She was a part of four championship teams and was named to six All-NPF teams.

Japan will also feature a returning ace in Yukiko Ueno, who was a member of the 2004 bronze-medal and 2008 gold-medal teams and an all-too-familiar opposing pitcher to Team USA.

During the 2004 Games, Ueno became the first to pitch a perfect game in Olympic softball competition. In 2008, she threw over 600 pitches over a four-day span, including pitching 28 innings against the United States and Australia en route to helping her team claim gold.

Australia will also feature a returning member from its 2004 and 2008 teams in Stacey Porter.

A first and third baseman with a great bat, Porter played three seasons at the University of Hawaii, breaking the school’s freshman home run record in 2001. In 2003, Porter broke the university and Western Athletic Conference records for most home runs in a season with 17, while batting over .479 in the process.

One of the key names for Team Canada is pitcher Danielle Lawrie, previously a member of the 2008 Canadian Olympic team that finished fourth. Lawrie, the sister of former major leaguer Brett Lawrie, pitched at the University of Washington for four seasons, including their College World Series win in 2009.

Lawrie still holds many Washington pitching records, as well as the all-time Pac-12 career strikeouts record and she was named Collegiate Player of the Year for her junior and senior seasons. Lawrie stands fourth in NCAA Division-I softball history for career strikeouts, fifth in perfect games and sixth in wins and innings pitched.

Lawrie pitched five seasons for the USSSA Pride of the NPF, being named an All-Star in 2011 and helping the team to championships in 2013 and 2014. Lawrie returned to NPF in 2019 and still pitches for the Canadian Wild.

Team Mexico also has quite the formidable pitching staff, which includes Dallas Escobedo, the current pitching coach at Cal State Fullerton.

Escobedo pitched at Arizona State from 2011 to 2014, going to the Women’s College World Series in her first three seasons and winning the NCAA tournament in 2011, being named Women’s College World Series Most Outstanding Player and the then-Pac 10 (now Pac-12) Freshman of the Year. Escobedo was named to the conference’s first-team in all four years.

Escobedo was the first overall pick in the 2014 NPF Draft, playing with the Pennsylvania Rebellion for three years and spending one season with the Texas Charge. Since 2018, Escobedo has been a pitcher for Scrap Yard Fast Pitch.

Finally, one of the more noted and experienced members of Team Italy is catcher and third baseman Erika Piancastelli, who is currently playing in the inaugural season of Athletes Unlimited.

Pinacastelli played at McNeese State from 2015 to 2018, winning the Southland Conference Player of the Year honor in each of her four seasons. She set conference records in home runs, RBIs, doubles, slugging percentage and walks. In fact, she finished her collegiate career as just one of nine NCAA Division I softball players with at least a .400 batting average, 200 RBIs, 50 home runs and a .800 slugging percentage in their career.

2021 Olympics: The Olympic spirit — Why is softball such a big deal?

For decades, there was advocating for softball to be added to the Olympics, but it wasn’t added for various reasons — from not enough affiliates to being deemed “too big and too expensive,” even when baseball returned to the Olympics following an approximate two-decade hiatus.

Softball had barely gotten a taste of the Olympic experience when it was decided in 2005 that it and baseball would be dropped from the Olympics after the 2008 Games in Beijing. The IOC’s decision to drop baseball and softball was based on the MLB’s refusal to allow its major league pros to partake and alter the MLB season.

For baseball, as disappointing as this was, it wasn’t the biggest deal. The MLB is still the top baseball league in the U.S. There are baseball leagues around the globe like Nippon Professional Baseball, the KBO League, the Dominican Professional Baseball League and the Mexican League. And the decision for baseball to be dropped from the Olympics led to the creation of the World Baseball Classic.

Softball, however, is another story.

Softball leagues (both men’s and women’s) have come and gone. And while we have the NPF now, it had folded at one point, and it doesn’t receive the attention or respect that a league like MLB gets. For many of the women coming out of the NCAA, Olympic softball (in this case and previously) represents the biggest stage (in terms of athletic/world competition and media coverage) they will get to play on after their collegiate careers have ended.

Softball (and baseball) isn’t on the table for events in the 2024 Summer Olympics currently. But with the talent that is going to be competing in this year’s Olympics, the hope is perhaps we will see a phenomenal competition and maybe softball can be a permanent fixture of the Olympics once more.

And maybe, just maybe, we can get more eyes and attention to a league like NPF and give softball players more professional opportunities.