ATHENS – U.S. 51, World 1.

Yes, Australia finally scored the first run against the women of American softball on Monday afternoon.

The Aussies did it because American right fielder Kelly Kretschman and second baseman Lovieanne Jung both veered off from what looked to be a sure collision. The ball fell just fair inside the right-field foul line for a double off the bat of Sandra Allen.

And then Australia scored the only run off American pitching in 56 innings of the 2004 Summer Olympic softball tournament when Stacey Porter, the next batter, ripped a two-out rocket past U.S. third baseman Crystl Bustos.

“The only run of the tournament,” said Porter, shaking her head in amazement.

U.S. victory, of course, was inevitable. Through the first eight games of the Olympics, the Americans had outscored their opponents by an average of a little more than 6-0. They stop Olympic softball games before the seven innings scheduled if one team goes ahead by seven runs.

And this inevitable victory, 5-1, brought the inevitable third straight Olympic gold softball medal to the United States. Olympic history for this sport is short: Atlanta in “96, Sydney in 2000, and Athens this year. None but Americans have ever stood on the golden plateau of the Olympic softball podium.

“The rest of the world has got good softball,” assured Kretschman. “But we just happened to put together a team that was unstoppable at this tournament.”

Kretschman was a popular interview on Monday, primarily because her involvement in giving up the world’s only run against the Americans.

Lisa Fernandez was sailing along with two outs in the sixth inning, having befuddled Australia’s would-be hitters without one since a two-hit first inning.

And then came Allen’s blooper down the line. Jung had a chance to catch it. So did Kretschman.

“I should of caught it,” Kretschman said. “I called her off. But I didn’t get there. I really feel sorry for our pitchers after what they did in this tournament.”

Perhaps more pity should be felt for the world, for Australia and Japan, the teams that, try as they might, stood in the shadows of the American women on the silver- and bronze-medal levels of the medal stand.

Because it wasn’t just pitching that gave a dominant tint to the familiar gold medal around the necks of Fernandez and Jennie Finch and Cat Osterman and Stacey Nuveman and Crystl Bustos and the rest of the U.S. stars.

While the world collected a total of 18 hits in nine defeats to the U.S., the Americans banged out 73. Fernandez not only earned four of the victories as a pitcher, but finished the Olympics hitting .545.

Bustos hit .346 with five home runs, two of which came against Australia on Monday in the gold medal game, and one was really a bomb.

Turning on Tanya Harding’s first pitch of the third inning, it wasn’t a question of whether Bustos’ line drive to left was going to clear the low left-field wall 220 feet away.

There was another 40 feet or so of the type of green, green grass you just don’t see much here in sun-baked Athens this time of year. And then there were those newly-planted trees, less than six-feet high.

The bright-yellow ball left all that screaming in its wake, finally came down in a parking lot and was last seen rolling toward the Olympic baseball stadium.

Bustos estimated the ball traveled maybe 330 feet. The official Greek measure was 300. But that could have been kilometers, someone joked.

“She makes it look easy,” said American teammate Leah Amico. “She has the biggest forearms. The ball just rockets off the bat.”

Yeah, this American softball team had it all, even a tragic reason to win it all again.

On July 16, during the final days of Team USA’s 53-0 pre-Olympic tour, the wife of U.S. coach Mike Candrea suffered a brain aneurysm on the team plane in Stevens Point, Wis. She died two days later.

For Candrea, urged on by his children and the memory of a wife that had retired in order to share in this Olympic adventure, Monday was special.

“I kept rubbing my wedding ring,” Candrea said.

From amid the victory pile, the celebrating U.S. players saw Candrea standing off to the side, soaking in the victory quietly.

“He’s always been like that as a coach,” Amico said. “His enjoyment is watching us play the game, watching us celebrate.

“We said, “We’ve got to go grab him.”‘

The ladies of U.S. softball did. They lifted him up, made him the focal point of their joy.

And yet with all the success of this Olympics, and the two before it, the day ended with Don Porter, the American who is the president of the International Softball Federation, and another U.S. Olympic official pondering how long softball will remain on the Olympic agenda.

Porter led the decades-long fight for the sport’s inclusion, and he was frowning when attendance – in a land where softball is so not played and all but one member of the Greek team here was Americans of Greek ancestry – was embarrassing.

It seemed to add evidence to the presentation of those within the international Olympic community that softball should be one of those sports lopped from future Games.

“We’re extremely pleased (on Monday),” Porter said, “because the attendance in the beginning really concerned us. But other venues had similar problems all over. We had the attendance today. We had (IOC) president (Jacque) Rogge there today with us, who spent the whole game with us.”

Herman Frazier, chef de mission for the U.S. Olympic team, was also on hand in a small stadium that appeared to be nearly sold out and boisterously enthusiastic throughout.

“If there is anyone from the IOC who doesn’t understand the popularity of the sport,” Frazier said, “just look around at the stands today. There are so many people, all the enthusiasm that was there.

“I think this was a statement, and a very positive statement, made here today by the attendance. The atmosphere, in the stands, that was just awesome.”

The American team was pretty awesome, as usual, as well.

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(c) 2004, The Kansas City Star.

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