Blogtober Day 24: Jennie Finch

Jennie is sort of like the Cy Young of softball. Have you ever seen her pitch? It's prettyyyy filthy.

Jennie originally followed her brothers onto the baseball diamond, but kept herself spread pretty thin athletically as a kid; in high school, she lettered four times in softball and two times each in basketball and volleyball, and was captain of all three as a senior. But she chose softball for college and became a dominating force. She was a three-time All-American and set the NCAA record for consecutive games won, with 60 (!!!!!) spanning nearly two whole seasons. This included three wins at the 2001 Women's College World Series; she led Arizona to the championship and won Most Outstanding Player. Jennie finished her collegiate career with 119 total wins, 12th most all time; 24 as a freshman, 29 as a sophomore, 32 as a junior and 34 as a senior. Jeez, talk about getting better with age!

She pitched on the 2004 Olympic team ('cause, hey, remember when softball was an Olympic sport?), finishing with a 2-0 record and 12 strikeouts, one hit, one walk and no runs in eight innings of work to lead the U.S. to the gold medal. In 2008, she pitched in three Olympic games (har har) going 11 shut-out innings, helping the U.S. win silver. And then softball was no longer an Olympic sport.

But what I didn't know is that there's also a National Pro Fastpitch softball league, and Jennie pitched there for a while as well (including several perfect games, because why not?). She retired in 2010 and was a huge advocate for softball's campaign to get re-added to the Olympics in 2016.

Oh, and Jennie can also strike out MLB All Stars.

While Jennie is sort of the Cy Young of softball, she's also the Mia Hamm of softball. Jennie revolutionized her sport the same way Mia revolutionized hers. She brought it into the spotlight and made it cool, gave girls the okay to be pretty and wear glitter headbands and play with hot pink bats. She has also never posed for Playboy or Maxim, kept her reputation spotless, stayed humble and is still committed to growing the game.

Sounds like an all-star to me!