Action at the Tokyo Olympics is scheduled to start on Wednesday as Japan meets Australia in softball with each team holding vastly different stakes in the sport's return to the Games.
With the Olympics getting underway a year late because of the COVID-19 pandemic, hosts Japan will throw the first pitch at 9 a.m. in Fukushima Prefecture. Spectators are banned.
It will be an unusual scene for Japanese players, who hail from a domestic professional league that involves cheerleaders, bands and busloads of employees from corporate sponsors.
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