Titletown USA . . . Seattle!?!?

Apparently inspired by my last post (Has It Really Been 30 Years? – where I call Seattle a pathetic sports city), the UW Women’s Softball team went out last night to prove me wrong and won the Women’s College World Series championship.

Though not a professional team nor a major sport (as defined in my last post), I for one hit the streets last night and partied like it was 1979.

I never really watched women’s fast-pitch softball until last week.  But you can now count me a fan.  Its a good sport and fun to watch.  I guess because I play co-ed softball, I relate to it.  But this is on a completely different level.  The pitch zooms to the plate at speeds upwards of 70 MPH which, considering distance, is the equivalent of a 100 MPH pitch in baseball.

UW was carried to victory on the shoulders of national player of the year Danielle Lawrie.  She is a freak.  She has pitched every pitch, in every inning, in every game for the UW since April 29th.  She ended the season with 13 straight complete games.  Over that span, she went Negro League.  In a throwback to the the old barnstorming days,  she pitched both games of the doubleheader – twice!  To increase the difficulty of that feat, each doubleheader featured an extra inning game.  I’m talking Satchel Paige.

Shannon is a sports fan (she is a bartender in a sports bar), but I never seen her as much into a game as Sunday when the Huskies lost in extra innings to Georgia.  No problem for Lawrie.  After pitching over 160 pitches in that game, she came back in the evening game to pitch another 120 to beat Georgia and clinch a birth to the final series.

Earlier in the series, she shrugged off a morning loss (inwhich she of course pitched a complete game) to pitch in the evening must-win game.  15 innings and 251 pitches later, she completed her one-run game and advanced the Huskies to the Super Regionals.

Bedard, are you listening?  Thanks for another 6 1/3.  Lawrie is the definition of staff ace and workhorse.  Here are some stats:

• Lawrie is credited with 42 of the 51 Huskies’ wins.
• She pitched 353 of the the 437 innings that comprised the UW season.
• She started 50 games, completing 46 of them.
• She started the Dawgs’ final 13 games, pitching every pitch in every inning of those games.
• She pitched and completed a game everday since Thursday, except for one off-day Saturday.  She of course followed up that day off by pitching nearly 300 pitches in both ends of the doubleheader on Sunday.

Mariners.  Trade Bedard.  And give Lawrie that vacant spot in the rotation.