Close to the gold

The US beat Japan in softball at the Olympics. While not surprising (hey, it is the national sport, after all, if on the amateur level), it's a bittersweet moment, because they're taking softball out of the Olympics (for at least eight years, apparently):

The Americans had won their first seven games in Beijing by a combined 53-1 and came in batting .377 as a team to their opponents' .042. The U.S. needed just five innings to claim its last four victories before the mercy rule was enforced... Four years ago, the U.S. rolled to gold in the shadow of the Acropolis. The Americans rewrote the record book, breaking 18 marks while winning their third straight Olympic title in the 12 years since softball joined the games in 1996. Damn Yankees. That's what the International Olympic Committee seemed to be saying when the sport was voted off the 2012 program, a decision that stunned softball to its core and left its supporters hoping this tournament would be more competitive... Japan shut them out for seven innings, and just as they did in Greece four years ago before losing, Japan took the U.S. into extra frames when the international tiebreaker goes into effect... The U.S. could face Japan again, this time for gold. The Americans, who have now outscored the field 57-2 in China, will face the winner of the Japan-Australia bronze-medal game. Thursday's golden finale will be softball's last game in the Olympics until at least 2016. Three years ago in Singapore, the IOC, in a 52-52 vote with one abstention, booted it off London's schedule, along with baseball.