Final Thoughts
Some thoughts from Tom Dart:
Hard to tell if Yukiko Ueno was crying or sweating at the end when she was mobbed by her teammates after giving up just two hits in six innings, with five strikeouts. Well-deserved win for a clearly hugely motivated host nation, who’ll be receiving their gold medals shortly, with the podium being set up just behind second base at the moment.
Well that was a hectic, fast-paced entertaining game. It was great to see softball return to the Olympics. Congratulations to Japan for their well-deserved victory as they just stymied the U.S. offense. That will do it for today’s softball liveblog, but you can continue to follow the Guardian’s coverage of the 2020 Olympics.
Updated
Email entitled “Come On Japan” from Chris Sato:
Hi Hunter,
I live in Japan (I am British) and my daughter plays softball at junior high.
They are out practicing every single day after school and the games are taken very seriously.
With no softball at Paris, it would be great to see softball return at LA in seven years with Japan as double defending champion.
Chris Sato”
Well, you have gotten your wish: Japan is celebrating winning gold while the U.S. will have to settle for silver in Olympics softball.
Japan wins the gold medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics
Japan 2-0 USA, FINAL
With two quick outs, the U.S team’s hopes come down to Delaney Spaulding, who hits a pop up for the final out of the game. Japan has won the 2021 Olympics Gold Medal Game!
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Japan 2-0 USA, Bottom 7th
It was an impressive play by Reed, but it will be meaningless if the U.S. can’t score.
Japan 2-0 USA, Top 7th
Janie Reed robs a home run attempt to end the inning, and all that’s left is to see if the U.S. can come up with another walkoff win.
Japan 2-0 USA, Top 7th
Wow, a ridiculous bounce goes against the US here as a prime scoring opportunity just utterly fell apart on them. Harada Nodoka gets a one-out hit here in the top of the seventh, could there be an insurance run situation here?
Japan 2-0 USA, bottom 6th
…and yet her team puts together a phenomenal double play to snuff out the American threat! That might have sealed the game right there.
Japan 2-0 USA, bottom 6th
Janie Reed, who had a triple in the first inning, hits a single here and now there’s two on for the U.S. This pitching change isn’t going great so far.
Japan 2-0 USA, bottom 6th
Goto Miu is pitching to Haylie McCleney who represents the tying run. She strikes her out. Yikes that was nasty.
Japan 2-0 USA, bottom 6th
The United States have only had a single hit in this game… well, wait, there’s the second hit with Michelle Moultrie, which will force a pitching change for Japan.
Japan 2-0 USA, top 6th
Japan want to salt this one away, so they get a runner on third base with just one out. Abbott, however, finds a key strikeout in the biggest possible spot and she retires her next batter.
Japan 2-0 USA, top 6th
Agatsuma Haruka greets Abbott with a single. Maybe they want to put this one away.
Japan 2-0 USA, bottom 5th
Ueno Yukiko back out there for Japan with a 2-0 lead. Ali Aguiar gets on first and then gets into scoring position on the next play but she strikes out her next batter. That feels like it might have been the US’s best chance to get back into this.
Run! Japan 2-0 USA
Japan 2-0 USA, top 5th
Abbott comes in and throws a wild pitch that puts Yamamoto Yu on second. Considering how tight these contests have been that could be critical… and it is, Fujita Yamato drives her home to make this a 2-0 game! This is huge!
Updated
Japan 1-0 USA, top 5th
Yamamoto Yu belts a two-out single and Monica Abbott is now coming in to pitch for the U.S. I also want to correct myself and say that it was Atsumi Mana who scored the game’s sole run so far. My apologies, this really has been going quite fast.
Japan 1-0 USA, bottom 4th
The U.S. goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the fourth. It’s been all about pitching and defense here, Japan’s manufactured run might be enough.
JAPAN SCORES! Japan 1-0 USA
Japan 1-0 USA, top 4th
Japan keeps getting runners on base, Fujita Yamato gets to third base after a single here with two out. Carda walks the next batter and Mana Atsumi hits an infield single to drive her home.
Updated
Japan 0-0 USA, bottom 3rd
Atsumi Mana grounds out to start the bottom of the third inning. It’s really ridiculous how quickly paced this game is compared to baseball, That’s a 1-2-3 inning for the overwhelmed batters. Meanwhile the commentators are making some points about the Olympics:
Email from Robert Kowalczyk
I agree with Shelley. All future Olympics should be broadcast world-wide for free.
Updated
Japan 0-0 USA, top 3rd
Osterman’s out, Ally Carda is in. She hits a batter, but some swift defensive work from her teammates allows her to erase the error.
Japan 0-0 USA, top 3rd
Email from Shelley Morrison:
We live in the richest nation in the world but can’t watch a Olympic gold medal match unless you pay to watch it?
What is wrong with this?! The Olympics is supposed to be for everyone to bring us together. Not happening in 2021 that’s for sure. Keeping a watch on your blog!
Crying in Chicago, Shelley
You can in fact see this game if your cable package has NBC Sports.
Updated
Japan 0-0 USA, bottom 2nd
Yukiko Ueno is pitching for Team Japan and she gets out of a jam with by inducing a sweet double play at the bottom of the second inning.
Japan 0-0 USA, top 2nd
The legendary Cat Osterman, is pitching for Team USA here. she allows a deep flyball but that’s it. Still scoreless heading to the bottom of the second.
Japan 0-0 USA, bottom 1st
Team USA has several opportunities to send runners to the plate, but each time they’re called out.
Japan 0-0 USA, bottom 1st
Okay, now we’ve found the softball proper. The US get a player on base, a one-out triple.
We're off!
JAPAN 0-0 USA, top of the 1st inning
Apologies for the delay, the television was a bust and it’s streaming for us. Japan go 1-2-3 at the top of the first inning.
Meanwhile, I, like many of you, are trying to find the game on the actual television. Theoretically it is going to be playing for me on NBC Sports Boston, but right now that channel is not playing any pregame softball coverage but rather an infomercial. I am reasonably certain my new roommate believes that I have absolutely made up my job.
Updated
The Guardian’s Tom Dart is actually on the scene:
This bowl-shaped 35,000-capacity venue about a 45-minute drive from downtown Tokyo, with its steep, elegantly curving blue stands, is sadly empty - but no doubt there’ll be a big home audience watching on television as Japan look to retain their Olympic title. Which they’ve held for 13 years, given that Olympic softball was last seen in Beijing. And with Paris set to skip the sport, the winners tonight will be reigning champions for at least seven years, given that, as you’d expect, baseball and softball are expected to return in LA in 2028.
The good news is that it stopped raining a few hours back, so while the field may be a little slick, we should be set to complete the game without any weather delays, though it’s rather humid and hot - anticipated to be 28C/82F at first pitch.
Olympics Softball Gold Medal Game
Welcome to the 2021 Olympics Gold Medal Softball Game between the U.S. and Japan. This is my first opportunity to liveblog Olympics softball because it, alongside baseball, was removed from the program after 2008. For the uninitiated, softball is a variation on regular baseball (a.k.a. hardball) where the ball is released by a pitcher in an underhand motion rather than overhand and it lasts seven innings rather than nine innings and is generally faster-paced in all other regards. It’s also played on a different sized field, although, controversially, the Tokyo Olympics didn’t bother to create an actual softball field so this game is being played on a modified hardball field.
Which is how it goes with softball, which is often unfairly regarded as an “inferior” brand of baseball. One reason for this is a segregation where girls are usually steered towards softball while boys play baseball, a trend which continues on in these Olympics where we have women’s softball and men’s baseball. As far as adult men playing softball, in the U.S. at least, we’re usually talking about men’s rec leagues. In any case, it’s important to note that women do also play hardball, that didn’t end with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of “A League Of Its Own” fame, although it’s a bit more common outside of America these days. This includes the fact that Japan has its own professional league: the Japan Women’s Baseball Team.
Again, though, this is not to shame softball, which is where most of the female talent is currently concentrated. It’s not shocking that the Gold Medal Game is between the two famously baseball-obsessed countries. Both teams went 4-0, leading to Sunday’s tiebreaking game to determine “home field advantage,” which here only means who bats last as Japan really has home field advantage since they are playing at, well, home. Despite being no-hit for much of the game. The U.S. pulled off a walk-off win with a seventh-inning home run to set up what should be a very tense Gold Medal Game.
If you would like to contribute to today’s liveblog, feel free to send me emails to hunter.felt.freelance@theguardian.com or sends tweets to @HunterFelt and I’ll use them throughout the next seven innings (or more, we’re not going to end this on a tie obviously). It’s the Gold Medal Game between Japan and the United States here at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics at a reformatted baseball stadium. First pitch is scheduled around 7:00am EST.
Updated
Hunter will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s news of another epic Olympic rivalry: Katie Ledecky v Ariarne Titmus:
After losing to Australia’s Ariarne Titmus in the women’s 400m freestyle, American Katie Ledecky departed the press conference tent at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre with a message: “See you in a few hours.” The five-time Olympic gold medallist was speaking to the gathered media, but she might as well have been talking to Titmus. This isn’t over yet.
The Ledecky v Titmus rivalry will define the Olympic swim meet. Only “rivalry” is not quite the right word. Over the past two years, ever since Titmus beat Ledecky at the 2019 world championships and the American failed to shake her opponent’s hand, the duel between them has been given much oxygen. In the pool, it is certainly box office – one of the best swimmers in history, the reigning queen of the pool, and a young prodigy eager to take the crown.
In the first and arguably most important round of their Tokyo 2020 match-up, the 400m freestyle, Titmus triumphed. The Tasmanian executed a perfect tactical swim – allowing the reigning champion to go out hard, knowing that she could reel her in during the final 100m. It worked, and a new 400m champion was anointed. The queen is dead; long live the queen.
You can read the full article below:
