SUGAR AND SPICE Richard Bevan talks exclusively to American softball icon Jennie Finch, who has proved conclusively that she doesn’t need to sacrifice her femininity to match her male counterparts in every department.
SOFTBALL, it’s just a wimp’s version of baseball isn’t it? Wrong. If you ran that particular theory past America’s Jennie Finch you might find yourself getting thrown out of the door in the style and pace of one of her legendary pitches – hard and fast. Finch, arguably the most famous softball player of all time, is a pitcher of furious ability. She throws the ball so fast that even the bat tries to get out of the way. Her pitching power was tested against a Major League baseball pitcher on a U.S. television show and she not only came out on top, she smashed the force-measuring equipment used in the experiment! The sport may be dominated by women at the top level but make no mistake, softball is every bit as tough as baseball and it’s growing rapidly around the world,
helped in no small way by the publicity attracted by pinup idols like Finch. Having taken up the sport as a young tomboy desperate to be like her two older brothers, she went on to make such an impression during her collegiate career at the University of Arizona that they retired her famous No. 27 jersey when she left. Since then she’s gone right to the top, becoming a star of the USA national team and winning a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens before losing out in the final to Japan in Beijing last year. She’s hot property on the media merry-go-round with a string of lucrative modelling, television and magazine deals under her belt but it’s on the softball field that she’s most comfortable and it’s there that her true legacy will be felt. 4
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