JENNY FINCH PRO
JENNY FINCH FREE

That’s unhittable.” and then freeze him with a changeup 15 miles per hour slower that looks just like a fastball coming out of the hand? It gave us the platform to really showcase what we do. To have a Major League player stand in there and look at a rise ball and say, “That’s unbelievable. As a sports fan, hopefully you can appreciate that. Granted, those players are not used to hitting from 38 feet by the time I release the ball, but the fact is that the timing is right up there with a 98 mile-per-hour fastball. We knew what we could do, what are game was about, what pitching was and what women can do, but it took that platform and that stage to really validate it in a way and to spread the word. To have an MLB player see one of my pitches and say, “That’s a Randy Johnson slider right there,” is great. JF: The best part of being able to throw to those MLB players is that it gave us a platform and the stage to showcase what we can do and the abilities we have. What do you think that did for the perception of softball as a sport? As part of the Jennie Challenge on This Week in Baseball, you struck out Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols and Barry Bonds, along with many other MLB players. SA:A softball thrown in the 70s is the equivalent of a baseball thrown in the 90s. Being able to accomplish that and have everything fall in line for that to be possible? If you’re a fan of any kind of sport, you should be able to appreciate that. If anything, they should just appreciate it as an athletic achievement, not as a baseball or softball thing. Yes, the dimensions of the game and the distances are different, but it’s the same thing as far as those incredible plays or doing something amazing like hitting four home runs for the cycle. Everything that happens in baseball happens in softball.

How many of them have ever hit a home run? How many have ever actually been to a softball game or even watched one on TV? The web gems are right up there with baseball. The internet has made it that much easier to be a bully behind a computer screen and never show your face. They want a reaction and that’s what they get. SA: What would you say to those who trolled ESPN’s Instagram post about Gibson’s achievement with negative comments about softball and Gibson’s achievement? To hit a home run or two and to hit the ball hard in every at bat is amazing, but to hit it out four times? It’s an amazing feat. I’ve had a few amazing games when the ball looked like a beach ball and I can only imagine that’s how she was feeling that day.

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How many stars have to be aligned? She was probably thinking she had a free pass to first base in those later at bats. Jennie Finch: First of all, why pitch to her after the second at bat? And by the fourth time, why are they still pitching to her? But it’s incredible, and the fact that it has never happened before validates the greatness of it. How difficult is that given the quality of pitching at the D-I level? Softball America: On February 24th, Arkansas sophomore Danielle Gibson hit a home run cycle.

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Softball America caught up with Finch to get her thoughts on everything from Danielle Gibson’s home-run cycle and bat flips to the National Pro Fastpitch league and softball’s standing in the Olympic Games.

Now, at 38, she continues to be an ambassador for the game and for female athletes in general. She won Olympic gold in Athens in 2004, silver in Beijing in 2008 and played for the Chicago Bandits in the National Pro Fastpitch league.

Softball legend Jennie Finch was an All-American pitcher with a 72 mile-per-hour fastball at the University of Arizona.

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