ISF President Don Porter says softball "will not combine with any other sport." (Getty Images)Nearly 12 hours after international baseball chief Harvey Schiller's meeting with international softball chief Don Porter in Orlando, Porter issued a statement that his sport "will not combine with any other sport."
Schiller received an e-mail from Porter on Friday morning notifying him of the decision. The e-mail arrived immediately after one from the Chinese association supporting a joint effort and before a similar message from Hong Kong.
"The rest of the world wants to do it," Schiller told Around the Rings.
In the past week, Schiller has also received support for a joint bid from Europe, Japan and Africa.
"Although I am surprised on the quickness of the response and am disappointed in the answer, I feel it does not deter us in our efforts to continue to move forward to get baseball back in the Olympics for 2016," Schiller said.
Baseball felt a combined bid would be strengthened by having disciplines for men and women.
However, softball's proposal to the IOC, which it submitted in a questionnaire filled out by the seven bidding sports, includes an option for men's softball.
Men's softball suffered a setback when it was dropped from the program for the Pan American Games prior to Rio de Janeiro 2007.
"The ISF proposal to the IOC is for an elite women's softball discipline with the option of an elite men's discipline if desired," Porter said. "We have offered the IOC a doping-free, universal team sport that reflects the values of Olympism all over the world."
Baseball was hit recently with a new doping scandal when New York IBAF President Harvey Schiller says he has receivedresponses from associations indicating support for a joint bid. (Getty Images)Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez admitted he used steroids following reports that he had tested positive for performance- enhancing drugs in 2003.
One of softball's major selling points has been that it has never had a positive drug test in major international competition since 1982.
"No sport is perfect," Porter told ATR. "We all have various negatives we wish we didn't have. Whether or not that affects baseball, I'm not sure. We do what we can to make sure our sport is as close as possible to being perfect."
To that end, softball has also striven to maintain its autonomy. The ISF recently instructed any national softball federation that is combined with a national federation of any other sport or sports to become fully independent as soon as possible.
"We have developed measures to safeguard the federations who need to make this transition," Porter said. "Softball is expanding, especially among the world's youth and females. The best way for us to continue this progress is for softball to remain firmly independent in all the major multi-sport Games -- including the Olympic Games."
Written by Karen Rosen
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