AJAX, Ontario (Reuters) - After the United States lost the softball gold to Japan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Laura Berg and four teammates placed their cleats on home plate and walked away knowing they would never play again.
It was a symbolic gesture in more ways than one. The game would also be the last played on an Olympic diamond, the sport soon afterwards dropped from the Summer Games program.
While softball was ditched by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), it remains a fixture at the Pan American Games and on Sunday the United States will be playing in the grand final.