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photo by Dina Kwit |
OKLAHOMA CITY — Olympic gold medalist Jennie Finch plans to retire next month and bring an end to a 10-year career in which she helped the sport blossom in the United States.
The dominating pitcher announced Tuesday that she will play her final games with the U.S. national team this week at the World Cup of Softball in Oklahoma City. She'll then finish the rest of the National Pro Fastpitch season with the Chicago Bandits before calling it quits at the age of 29 to focus on her family.
The 6-foot-2 Finch was a standout at Arizona before becoming an icon with the U.S. team, going 32-0 her junior year and putting together 60 consecutive wins — both NCAA records. She won gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and silver four years later in Beijing.
This month, she helped the U.S. win its seventh straight world championship.
"This whole career has been way more than I ever even imagined or dreamed," Finch said in an interview with The Associated Press. "The opportunities that I'd be able to enjoy and appreciate and be a part of, it's been incredible."
Finch was much more than a pretty face as she took over Lisa Fernandez's place as the sport's most recognized player during a period when the following for the Women's College World Series and the national team experienced marked growth. Her 60-game run stretched over nearly two years and included the 2001 WCWS title.
Her dominance carried over to the national team, where she combined with the likes of Fernandez and Cat Osterman to make up the world's best pitching rotation through the early part of the decade.
Coupled with her softball skills, Finch's beauty and charm landed her a place in pop culture. She struck some of the big leagues' best hitters in appearances on "This Week in Baseball," competed on "Celebrity Apprentice" and made the rounds on late-night talk shows.
Finch, who will turn 30 in September, said it's time to turn her focus to her family. She and pitcher Casey Daigle, who has split this season between the Houston Astros and Triple-A Round Rock, have a 4-year-old son, Ace, and hope to have more children.
The couple have spent about two weeks together at their Arizona home over the past year, Finch said, and the world championships in Venezuela meant 14 days away from her family.
"I just feel like it gets harder and harder every year with Ace getting older and time away from my husband and even family events such as birthdays and friends' weddings and things that I've always just missed out on because of softball," Finch said.
"It's getting a little bit harder to miss those moments in life."
While many of her veteran teammates walked away from the game after the U.S. lost to Japan in the gold-medal game in 2008, Finch stuck around and helped with an unsuccessful bid to get softball added back into the Olympics after it was dropped from the 2012 and 2016 games.
Finch said she plans to stay involved in softball, running her own camps and perhaps serving as an ambassador if asked to do so. She even suggested that eliminating travel and training will give her more time to help spread the sport. She didn't rule out a role in team ownership.
"I hope to stay involved," she said. "It's been such a big part of my life and I can't imagine my life without it."
Even now, Finch gets a rush out of putting on the red, white and blue and hearing a home crowd chant "U-S-A" — something she'll experience a few final times at the World Cup beginning Thursday night.
"Right now in my career, it's like I'm having more fun than I've ever had, so it's kind of like, "Man, I can't stop now,'" she said. "I'm playing first base and pitching and hitting. I feel like I'm almost better than I've ever been. It's like, "You're going to walk away like this?'"
The Bandits' last regular-season game is scheduled for Aug. 22 at home in Elgin, Ill.
