This might be her last Olympic Games, but American pinup pitcher Jennie Finch didn't have the chance to be in the diamond during the final.

Sitting beside the field, the 28-year-old Barbie-faced blonde watched helplessly to see the gold fall into the pocket of the Japanese.

Her dream for a second Olympic softball gold, or the fourth for her countries, was shattered.

Her lucky red headband, which she wore in every game as a routine, failed to take effect this time.

Finch, a right-hander, is definitely one of the best pitchers in the world. At the Athens Olympics, she posted a 2-0 win-loss tally, striking out 13 batters in eight innings while giving up only one hit, one walk and no runs, to lift the U.S. team to the top of the podium.

At these Games, she worked 11 innings, allowing two hits with no runs.

In the final staged at the Fengtai softball field in southwest Beijing on Thursday, however, it was left-hander Monica Abbott who hurled.

"The Japanese team has seven left-handed batters," said the coach Mike Candrea, citing strategic concern.

The depressed Finch drooped her head, walking quickly out of the field.

CRUSADER

To Finch, grabbing the Olympic gold in Beijing has been more than winning another match.

Softball has been voted out of the 2012 Olympics in London. It was undecided whether the sport could return to the Olympic agenda four years later.

Thus the players wanted to use their outstanding performance at the Beijing Games to showcase that softball belongs to the Olympics, and to make the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials realize "it is a mistake" to exclude the sport from the Olympic calendar.

"The IOC took my softball dreams away. You know, that is like a knife to the heart," Finch said.

"It deserves to be an Olympic sport," she added.

Finch said she would help with reinstatement of the sport by traveling all over the world to bring equipment to those countries without enough funding for softball, and help the youth there to have the sport.

"I know what this game has given me. I want other girls to be able to experience the same thing."

However, even if the sport could be back in 2016, the regretful player didn't know whether she herself, aged 36 by then, would still be on the field or not.

"That's too long away," she said.

But "never say never," added the blonde, smiling.

HOME PERSON

The softballer never conceals her love to her family.

"My family is my backbone, my heart and my soul. I owe everything I have and what I have become to them," the pitcher, who was feared by her rival, became emotional at this topic.

Starting to play softball at the age of 5, Finch's first coach was her father, Doug Finch, who invented the Finch Windmill, an arm conditioning device that has been selling for more than a decade.

She got married on Jan. 15, 2005. She and her husband, Casey Daigle, shared a lot in common. They were both Christian, with same values. But above all, he is a pitcher as well, for the Minnesota Twins' Class AAA team. Competition performances were one of their major topics, as the pair admired one another in the diamonds.

On May 4, 2006, they got their boy, whom the pitcher couple named Ace.

Talking about her own family, Finch said, "having each other is our escape from that whole world."

However, as the Olympic Games were drawing near, she noted that they had less time with each other.

"The Olympic year has been a crazy year. I haven't seen more than 10 (of his) games on the season," she said.

The couple could see each other maybe three days a month, but each day, they talked four or five times.

When Finch played in the 2006 World Championships in Beijing, her son Ace came along with her.

But this time, only her parents came, while her husband and the boy had to watch television at home back in the States.

Despite a 12-hour time difference between Beijing and New York, the pitcher was sure that Daigle would be with her during the competition.

"If I'm not watching the game, she'd never know," the husband was once quoted as saying by a local newspaper. "But to me, I'd feel like I was letting her down. It's something I want to do and I need to do."

He told her before the game that they'd be there "with her every pitch."

Asked about her plan after the Games, Jennie gave a prompt reply.

"I prefer to be going home to my son, and be a mom and a wife," she said with a beam.

(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2008)