Monday, June 30, 2008

Petition Site

We finally spoke to someone about the petition site. They say it is down for maintenance with no real estimated time it will be back online. Look for a new petition site soon.

PetitionThem.com is down!!!

We are looking into the problem with the petition site. Unfortunately it has been impossible to contact anyone about the site being down. We are presently unable to retrieve the 7000 signatures from there and we are actively looking for a secure alternative to that site. Please be patient while we look further into this problem. If anyone has any information about it, please let us know.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Jamie Catches First Pitch by Jenny Finch

Chicago Bandits Pitcher and Team USA Player, Jenny Finch, was on hand at Sunday's Chicago Bandit's game against Team Canada to throw out the honorary first pitch of the game. Jamie, fully geared by Mizuno, was on hand to catch it! First, Jamie comes out with an oversized glove full of padding to catch the heat! Then when Jenny lobs it over, Jamie makes the catch. Thanks to Jenny for coming out to watch the game, and to the Chicago Bandits staff for providing the opportunity. 

Jamie Meets Team Canada


This past weekend was a very busy one for me. I was in Elgin, Illinois, and met up with the Chicago Bandits and Team Canada. My efforts to spread the word about my petition, and the back softball campaign, have many hopeful for a re-instatement vote by the IOC. 

I met with Team Canada and told them about my petition. The girls are all very nice, and support what I am doing. As stressed by the BackSoftball Task Force Members, it is important to get the message out regarding the pending decisions the IOC will make after the Olympic Games this year. International connection is the key to opening the doors for foreign players to come together to play the sport we love. 

US softball champs try to save Olympic status while defending gold

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Winning a fourth consecutive gold medal is only part of the mission in Beijing for the US Olympic softball team. The American women must also try to rescue their sport from Olympic exile.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials voted in 2005 to drop softball and baseball from the Summer Games after Beijing, although both sports are making a bid to have the IOC reconsider the decision.
"We've got two things in mind, win gold and get softball in people's minds," US outfielder Laura Berg said. "There are 128 countries that play the sport. It is important the IOC sees that."
The US women might be victims of their own domination, having won all three Olympic golds with a combined 25-4 record. They went 9-0 in 2004 at Athens, outscoring foes 51-1 and only allowing Australia a late run in the title game.
"We can prove softball should remain in the Olympics if we just go out and play to the best of our ability and win," US pitcher Cat Osterman said. "The biggest thing we can do is show them the best softball they have ever seen."
Some feel the IOC punished baseball for the fact Major League Baseball, hit with recent doping scandals, will not shut down its season to send stars to the Olympics with softball thrown out for being a women's version of the same game.
"It was about baseball," US standout Jessica Mendoza said. "To me that's disrespectful, that they would remove a sport without knowing about it.
"That's where I think the IOC needs to do us right. We don't take steroids. We're not turning down the Olympics to make millions of dollars.
"My challenge is to get the IOC to come and watch a game, look these girls in the eye and tell me this sport should be taken from the Olympics."
Whether IOC members ever bother to go and watch a game, softball has been ejected for London in 2012 and has an uphill fight for a place in 2016 at either Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid or Rio de Janeiro.
US blonde pin-up girl Jennie Finch, a fireball pitcher who became a mother since starring in 2004, hopes for reinstatement thanks to global growth.
"Interest in the game is at an all-time high," Finch said. "More for outside the US, it's important for dreams of girls in places like Croatia and Japan. We look at Beijing as a world-class stage to prove we belong."
Japan, third in Athens and second at the 2006 world championships and 2007 World Cup, could provide the biggest US threat with pitcher Yukiko Ueno, who hurled the first perfect game in Olympic history against China in 2004.
The Japanese also boast outfielder Eri Yamada, nicknamed the "Female Ichiro" for batting success similar to Japan's Ichiro Suzuki, a baseball star for the Seattle Mariners.
The Aussies, with two Olympic bronzes and a silver, are led by Stacey Porter and veteran pitcher Tanya Harding while Canada could challenge behind pitcher Lauren Bay, whose older brother Jason stars for baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates.
China will seek a podium finish after coming fourth at two Olympics and three world tournaments. Venezuela and the Netherlands complete the field.
Article posted at www.backsoftball.com



A member of the women's national softball team signs an autograph as part of the World Softball Day celebration in China last year. (Photo courtesy of China Softball Association)
IT'S WORLD SOFTBALL DAY
2008-06-13
 
Today marks the fourth straight year that the International Softball Federation is leading the charge for worldwide celebrations of World Softball Day. In the lead-up to today's special day for the sport, the world governing body has been asking its 130 member federations to make plans for this occasion in their country.
Articles remain available online from the first three years that World Softball Day was celebrated. Check out last year's, as well as what was written in2006, and the story for the first-ever World Softball Day.
June 13 coincides with the date in 1991 that the International Olympic Committee approved women's fast pitch softball as an Olympic sport, effective with the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
An article on World Softball Day 2008 will appear in the September-December issue of the Official Publication of the International Softball Federation, World Softball magazine.
As a sneak peek toward that story, the ISF is already aware of plans that had been made for Colombia and Nicaragua. The latter actually began activities last weekend (June 5-8), has another event planned for Sunday (June 15), and has one more tournament scheduled for two weeks from now – all as part of their World Softball Day celebrations. Colombia's efforts are significant as well. Their plans tie-in 2008 marking 50 years of softball in that country. They are issuing a commemorative magazine as a result.
Now that you're on our website and have read this article and since the occasion is falling on a Friday this year, go out now and play ball (or organize or watch or officiate) – it's World Softball Day!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

JUNE 15 - JENNIE FINCH IS COMING!!

This Sunday, June 15, Jamie Gray will be accompanying members of Team USA to Chicago Bandits Stadium at Judson University as the Bandits take on Team Canada, as part of a “Tribute to Olympic Softball” by Gray. Gray is featured in thesoftballchannel.com documentary about her determination to get Softball back into the Olympics in time for 2016.  A catcher herself, Gray will be on hand to catch the ceremonial first pitch from 2008 Beijing Olympian and Chicago Bandit Vicky Galindo. 

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Gray will be accompanying Team USA to Chicago Bandits Stadium


The Olympic Games are the highest level of competition for any sport, but for women's sports it provides a stage to promote equality and the opportunity to compete in front of the world - helping to build sports for young women across the globe. Currently, there are 8.4 million girls playing softball across the globe (the size of New York City in 2004) and their softball world was damaged when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose to keep softball out of the 2012 Olympic Games, by a single vote.
With the future looking bleak for the 8.4 million, one girl decided to change the future. Meet Jamie Gray, a 14 year old from Delray Beach, Fla., with the talent and determination to play softball at its highest level. But, like many girls around the world her dreams were crushed when the IOC voted out softball in 2012 - the first year she'd be eligible to play.

Determined to keep up her dreams, Gray said "Some way, some day, I will represent my country and play fast-pitch softball for Team USA in the Olympics."

Instead of walking the boulevard of broken dreams, Gray took action by petitioning the IOC to prove how popular softball is across the globe. Her website, savesoftball.com, has an online petition with over 6,600 signatures to date and has garnered national attention. With help from the International Softball Federation (ISF), who has also made global efforts to increase the popularity of softball, she looks to get softball back into the Olympics by 2016.

After the U.S. Softball team's 14-0 victory over Florida International University at an exhibition game in Hollywood's Osceola Park, Jamie Gray approached the Olympians. She did not rush them with pens, t-shirts and balls for an autograph, but instead she told them they "were playing for girls like me," said Gray. "They need to win and need to help save it [Olympic Softball] because girls like me have a dream of playing in the Olympics."

The greatness of Team USA was partially a cause for the shocking vote by the IOC. The earning of three gold medals in three Olympic competitions (1996, 2000, and 2004) by Team USA was seen as too dominating. The IOC felt this created an unlevel playing field for international competition. The cutting of softball is the first elimination of a sport since 1936 when polo was removed from the Games. Softball as an Olympic sport was born in 1996 and the popularity has grown since.

As it was before the cut, women were significantly underrepresented in the Olympic Games, making up just 4,306 of the 10,568 participants (just 41%) in the 2004 Olympics. With softball, double-trap shooting and the 500m time trial in cycling being removed, there will be126 less opportunities for women in the Olympics. Decreasing opportunities for women in the Olympic Games is inconsistent with the IOC's efforts to increase gender equity in the Olympic Movement.

But, contrary to the IOC votes, the popularity of softball is on the rise. Official reports from Beijing are showing that the Gold Medal rounds have sold out completely for the 2008 Games, and the 28 round robin games are nearly sold out - 90 percent as of April 9, a pace that will sell out the round robin games as well.

The turnout was so great at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia that "softball was in the top ten (out of 28 sports) in spectator turnout," reported Bruce Wawrzyniak, ISF Director of Communications, making softball one of the most popular sports at the Games.

"This is particularly rewarding for the world-class athletes that will compete in the softball competition," said ISF President Don Porter. "They've worked hard to get to where they are, and while they go to China knowing the eyes of the world will be upon them, it will be rewarding for them to be able to play in front of a packed stadium. The eight teams that qualified are extremely talented and this can only make for a more competitive and entertaining atmosphere."

The ISF has created a 10-step blueprint plan for getting Softball back into the Olympics. Jamie Gray has been touring the country in hopes of making the goal a reality by helping spread the words of the ISF. The base of the plan includes increasing the world popularity of softball from 8.4 million to 10.5 million by Oct 2009(a 25 percent increase). There is also emphasis on increasing the number of participants in countries throughout the Middle East by giving women and girls an accessible and acceptable route to participating in sports.

The Back Softball campaign is running "in the spirit of fair play and will uphold all the values of Olympism. However, the ISF is mounting this campaign to succeed and not just to take part. The ISF aims to prove that Softball is an asset for the Olympic Movement by meeting and exceeding all criteria used by the IOC to evaluate sports for the Olympic Program of the 2016 Games," reads step 10 of the blueprint.

Re-instating softball as an Olympic Sport is a daunting task for any one, no doubt a challenge for a 14 year old that has fearlessly taken the world of softball on her shoulders. But, Gray's goal of playing in the 2016 Olympics, at the prime age of 22, are to worldly to forget. The IOC will be meeting in 2009, after the Beijing Olympics, to decide on the games that will be included in the 2016 Olympics. With the possibility of Chicago hosting the 2016 Games, Gray is more determined than ever to make Softball an Olympic sport once again.

"We were just one vote short for 2012, let's not be short in 2016! I know that I am just one 14 year old girl with a dream, but I believe with your help, we can make a difference. That difference can make my dream come true," said Gray.

For more information about Jamie Gray and her petition to "Save Olympic Softball" head to www.savesoftball.com.