Baseball/Softball out of 2012 Olympics

In the spirit of Opening Day for Major League Baseball, I wanted to draw attention to the fact that basebaal and softball have both been takin out of the 20102 Summer Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted in a secret ballot to have both sports removed as of July, 2005. The IOC claims that they are both too Americanized sports and the rest of the world wouldn't be able to relate. What's funny is, there are over 120 countries that play softball, and in the 08' Olympics the Japanese won the gold medal. As for baseball, it became an Olympic sport in the 92' Barcelona Games. But, the U.S. team only has two medals as of the 08' Olympics. The American team won bronze in the 1996 Atlanta Games and gold in the 2000 Sydney Games. To make matters even worse than that, in this past Olympics (08') the U.S. team didn't even qualify for the Games. With all this being said, I want to know how the IOC could say that these two sports are too Americanized? I think it is a shame that a beautiful and diverse sport be left out of such a rewarding event.