Famous Softball Players

These players made many records and accomplishments during their exciting softball careers.  Today, they serve as role models for other players and hold a special place in the hearts of all softball fans.

Famous Softball Players: Michele Smith

Michele Smith is a native of New Jersey where she went to the Voorhees High School.  She played softball during her high school years and she maintained records for no hitters, strikeouts, and wins.  She eventually attended Oklahoma State University. Smith is an amazing athlete that has overcome a number of tragedies in her life.  In the late 1980s, she was in an automobile accident with her father.  She was thrown from the vehicle and she was severely injured; she had a piece of her bone on her elbow chopped off, and a torn tricep muscle in the arm that she pitches with.  After enduring nine months of extensive rehabilitation, she made a hard and fast comeback to the softball game as a pitcher while she attended Oklahoma State University.  In fact, she was a better pitcher than ever before and increased her pitching speed by as much as three miles per hour.

Smith was a professional player on softball teams since the early 1990s, and played in the Japanese Professional Softball League.   Smith is a softball gold medal winner in the Olympics, not once, but twice, and she was a member of the US team in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.  Six years later, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame for softball players.  She won the Pro League Champion and MVP competitions seven times while playing for Japan.  She is currently identified as a Softball Ambassador and will help to bring the game back to the 2016 Olympics.  Smith has played a variety of positions in her career including a right fielder, pitcher, and first base.  She bats left-handed and pitches with her left hand too.  She also plays field hockey and basketball.  She has earned the nicknames Lioness, Mikey, Lefty, Silky, and Smitty.  For more information visit http://www.michelesmith.com/.

Famous Softball Players: Dot Richardson

Dot Richardson, also sometimes called Dorothy, is a native of Orlando, Florida.  This famous softball player is a former international player as well as a doctor.  Richard went to college at the Western Illinois University where she was in attendance for one year.  She later attended the University of California in Los Angeles for a period of four years.  She eventually earned a Master’s Degrees at Adelphi University and she was also a graduate assistant for softball at the same university.  She followed her time at Adelphi at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and got her degree in the early 1990s.  She followed her degree in medicine with a five-year long residency at the University of Southern California. 

Richardson was in the Olympic Games in 1996 and she, along with her other softball playing teammates helped to win the first gold Medal in Softball at the event.  She followed her gold medal win with an fellowship in Los Angeles at the Kerlan Job Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Clinic. During her time in college she was honored with the NCAA Player of the Decade title.  In 1990, she was given the Nuprin Comeback of the Year Award.   In 1996, she was inducted into the UCLA Hall of Fame.  In 1997 she was award the Babe Zahrias Award, and 1998 she was awarded the Sports Legend Award.  She is also inducted into the National Softball hall of Fame.  She won the All America honor a total of fifteen times and she was a member of a championship team ten times during her softball career.  For more information on Dot Richardson visit http://www.dotrichardson.com/

Famous Softball Players: Jennie Finch

Jennie Finch participated as a team member on the 2088 Silver Beijing team and the 2004 Gold Athens team in the Olympic games.  She is a native of California and sometimes she uses the last name of Daigle after her husband. Finch started playing the game of softball when she was just 5 years old and she started softball pitching three years later.  While still very young, she assisted teams at the University of California; she was a bat girl for softball teams.  During her high school years, she lettered twice for basketball, twice for volleyball and four times for the game of softball.  During her sophomore year in high school, she was a choice in the All Suburban League and the All California Interscholastic Fed. Division.

Finch attended the University of Arizona where she served as a softball pitcher for the collegiate team.  There she earned the title of All American Pitcher & First Basement three times and the Honda Sports Award twice.  In the early 2000s, Finch won her fifty first consecutive softball game and set a record doing so.  Eventually, she wound up with sixty consecutive wins in all.  Finch has proven to have impressive control over the ball when she pitches, whether she is throwing a drop ball, a screwball, a curveball, or a riser.  When she pitches, she has been clocked at 70 miles per hour.

She played and won in the Women’s College World Series; was honored with the title of the Most Outstanding Player, and her number 27 was later retired by the university in 2003.   Finch was at one time a pitcher on a national softball team in the USA and she is a former team member of the Chicago Bandits.  She was a major contributor to helping the USA softball team take home the win in the Olympics in 2004.  Time Magazine has dubbed finch as the most famous softball player of all time.  She retired from her softball career in 2010 so she could spend more time with her loved ones.  For more information visit http://www.jenniefinch.com/.