Uh, Okay Then

ESPN has announced that Jenni Finch is retiring after a 10 year career.

Now, if your wondering why ESPN announced the retirement of a 29 year old part time model, don't feel bad I had the same question.

Turns out they were referring to her softball career, which is even more confusing.

I vaguely remember her preempting real sports programming on ESPN back in the day during the College Softball World Series and then again sometimes with the United States national team. Surely there has to be more than that warrant an announcement right?

Nope.

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a professional softball league in the world. As such, you can never stop being an amateur and that's the problem. You can't retire from being an amateur. Maybe you stop trying out for the national team but every time you pick up a bat at a family barbecue, technically you have retained amateur status. So why exactly has this non-story made front page headlines at ESPN.com? I don't recall them announcing the "retirements" of any other Olympic/amateur athletes?

I suspect it's ESPN trying to wring a little more blood out of Finch's stone. Bearing down on the ripe old age of 30, I'm guessing the swimsuit modeling jobs aren't in full effect and she probably was getting to be a long shot to make the national team anyway. Something tells me ESPN has big plans for her and the suddenly revamped and resigned Erin Andrews. However, wasting valuable web space on a nothing announcement does complete the time waste pentagram after The Decision, The ESPY's, Skip Bayless and Colin Cowherd. So that's a plus.