Master · 1999-2010 · right-handed
Jennie Finch
The face that took softball mainstream — a 60-game college win streak and a riseball that made the sport must-watch.
Signature pitchRiseball
Jennie Finch did two things at once: she dominated, and she made everyone watch. At Arizona she won 60 games in a row, an NCAA record, and she carried that visibility to Olympic gold and into the broader culture in a way no softball player had before. The riseball was the pitch people remember, climbing out of a low release at hitters who could not lay off it.
The signature pitch
A riseball thrown out of a clean, repeatable windmill that, paired with her command, made her nearly unbeatable in college and a gold-medal arm internationally. At the 2004 Olympics she went 2-0, allowing a single hit and no runs over eight innings with 13 strikeouts.
The mental edge
Relentless and unflappable in the biggest moments, she set the NCAA record with 60 consecutive wins and then carried the sport on her back as its most recognizable ambassador. The standard for what a dominant, durable, mainstream softball star could be.
The record
Sixty consecutive wins at Arizona, still the NCAA record, with the 2001 national championship in the middle of the streak — and fifty home runs of her own on the other side of the ball.
At the 2004 Olympics she won both her starts, allowed one hit and no runs across them, and came home with gold. Silver followed in 2008, and the National Softball Hall of Fame after that.
The numbers live with the record-keepers.
The record is told in prose, each claim confidence-labeled and one click from its source. Where a line is a teammate’s words rather than the pitcher’s own, it is labeled as such, not put in her mouth.