BEIJING — Jennie Finch is here at the Olympics, pitching for an indomitable United States women’s softball team that is on track for a fourth consecutive gold medal.
Casey Daigle is traveling to Moosic, Pa., and praying for a major league call-up from the Twins’ Class AAA affiliate that is 15 games out of first place.
“We’re doing what we love, which is extra cool, and we’re both living our dreams out on the playing field,” Finch said. “It’s just been a crazy, crazy couple of years. But it’s just been absolutely amazing, and it just continues to get better. It’s not easy at times, but we know it’s only for a short time.”
Such is the hectic life of the first family of the softball and baseball diamonds, a couple who named their son Ace.
Finch is trying to save her sport, after the International Olympic Committee voted to remove softball from the program of the 2012 London Olympics. Daigle is trying to salvage his career with the Rochester Red Wings, after spending parts of two unspectacular seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“I would love to be with her, but I know that’s not an option,” Daigle said by telephone the other day. “I think things are going well, and I’m looking forward to September and getting a shot.”
For now, though, Daigle seems more nervous for his wife.
He doesn’t want to miss any of her starts, so he stays up into the wee hours of the morning.
“If I’m not watching the game, she’d never know,” Daigle said, pointing out the 12-hour time difference between Beijing and Rochester, N.Y. “But to me, I’d feel like I was letting her down. It’s something I want to do and I need to do.”
EACH OTHER’S ‘ESCAPE’
The initial attraction wasn’t a surprise when they met in 2002. Finch was wrapping up a brilliant career at the University of Arizona, where she won an NCAA-record 60 consecutive games and was a two-time Honda Award winner as the nation’s top player, while Daigle was training with the Diamondbacks in Tucson.
“I know what did it for me: 6 foot 1, blond and green eyes,” Daigle joked.
Said Finch, “He’s tall, dark and handsome, and I instantly fell for that.”
But their attraction moved beyond the physical characteristics; they’re both Christians, sharing similar values, and each highlighted the other’s strong roots.
In fact, in separate interviews, they provided near-identical answers when asked what connects them.
Daigle: “That’s not what our relationship is about. That brought us together. But she is my escape from baseball, and I’m her escape from softball.”
Finch: “I think we know where our hearts are. Having each other is our escape from that whole world.”
But as the face of USA Softball, Finch has become one of this country’s most celebrated female athletes. She legitimized softball, striking out major leaguers such as Mike Piazza, and helped elevate her sport, appearing on late-night talk shows and magazine covers.
In January, Finch was “fired” on the Celebrity “Apprentice” by Donald Trump.
Daigle said all of the attention amuses him.
“She’s not the Hollywood, spotlight type,” he said. “In the offseason, she’ll go three or four days and won’t leave the house, wearing nothing but sweat pants and a T-shirt and watching TV. I mean, I look at her and laugh whenever I see her get dressed up for the ESPYs and Emmys.”
The joke, though, is often on Daigle.
With such a popular wife, he is the target of numerous jokes, from both friends and strangers.
They are known by aliases — he as “Mr. Jennie Finch” and she as “Sugar Mama.” The latter is how fellow Red Wings pitcher Mario Gomez exclusively refers to Finch.
“He doesn’t even refer to her as Jennie or my wife, but I don’t even think he knows what that (Sugar Mama) is,” Daigle said, referring to Gomez, a Honduras native. “That’s hilarious.”
In 2004, when Daigle got his first major league call-up in Arizona, teammates forced the rookie to wear a Diamondbacks uniform on a bus ride sporting a blond wig. And leading up to the Olympics, Red Wings teammates would razz him when Finch would show up on television.
“We would dog him about her being the breadwinner in the family,” Red Wings teammate and U.S. Olympic pitcher Brian Duensing said. “We’re just messing with him, but he takes it well.”
Daigle said he gets the last laugh.
“If I let that stuff get to me, I’d be in serious trouble,” Daigle said. “Any time someone says that to me, that’s just a compliment to me for who I’m with.
“I actually like it.”
His wife does not.
She admitted, “it’s definitely weird,” as well as uncomfortable.
In her mind, Finch is a “normal girl.”
“A daughter, a wife, a mom, a sister,” she said.
NEXT UP: A NORMAL LIFE
Finch is hoping for her second Olympic gold medal. Then, she is looking forward to some stability in her schedule.
“The Olympic year has been a crazy year,” Finch said, adding that there were recent months in which she and Daigle saw each other for only a few days. “I haven’t seen more than 10 (of his) games on the season, so I look forward to the times where I can be there, and he can have some consistency, as far as family life, and baseball.”
Ironically, Daigle said, he talks to his wife more now than usual, about four or five times a day. They will talk about their performances — although they don’t give each other scouting tips because the two sports are so different — but their conversations usually don’t revolve around their respective sports.
Daigle said he looks for the “light at the end of the tunnel.”
“This is it for her, this is her last tournament,” he said. “When the Olympics are over, we’ll just be a couple again, and can be together, hopefully have more kids. We’ll make up for being apart so much these four years.”
Daigle, 27, will continue to chase his dream of returning to the big leagues. He is 1-5 with a 3.78 earned-run average in 44 games for Rochester, with one save and one start.
Whether he makes it or not, Ace and Jennie aren’t going anywhere.
“He’s young still, and I think he has a long career ahead of him,” Finch said. “But if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and we’ll be there for him.”
Staff writer Phil Miller contributed to his report.
