USA's Olympic Softball Team visits Washington

Last Thursday night I had the pleasure of going to watch the USA Olympic Softball Team play an exhibition match against Robert Morris University at Consol Energy Park. Having looked at the schedule of Team USA's exhibition matches, I was expecting a blow out (scores of past games typically featured Team USA in the double digits with their competitors all scoring zero runs). That's exactly what happened this time, but the game was exciting and considering Team USA is widely considered to be the best softball unit in the world, Robert Morris probably felt proud just to be on the field with them.

I'm not a big follower of softball, but I'm told that for softball fans, meeting Jennie Finch is like meeting Jordan or Ali. She is the face of softball in this country and was even featured in Sports Illustrated (albeit the swimsuit edition). I was immediately struck by how tall she and fellow star pitcher Cat Osterman are. Both were several inches taller than my 6 foot height. Other highlights included watching Crystal Bustos hit a three run homer in the first inning only seconds after the person standing next to me proclaimed, "That's the Babe Ruth of softball." No kidding!

Some highlights from the game followed by interviews with both Jennie Finch and Cat Osterman can been seen in the video footage. The game ended in 6 innings (one shy of the standard due to the 16-0 score), but the team stayed to sign autographs mostly for girls of all ages playing softball at various levels locally. Team USA will be playing in Beijing this year and pursuing their 4th consecutive gold medal. The sport was introduced at the Olympic level in 1996 and will be discontinued after this year, meaning Team USA would have won gold in softball every single year that it was possible should they do so again.