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Biography

Jennie Finch was born on September 3, 1980, in La Mirada, California. The daughter of Doug and Bev Finch, she has two brothers, Shane and Landon, who are both married. Jennie played a variety of sports from a young age, but her focus was on softball. By age 12, she was already playing competitively at the national level. In 1992, her team, the California Cruisers, finished fourth in the American Softball Association 12-and-under National Championship; in 1993, the Cruisers won the ASA Championship. Jennie and her teammates repeated their victory in 1995, in the under-14 category. Attending La Mirada High School in the mid-'90s, Jennie took her athletic achievement to new heights. She excelled not only in softball -- where she played pitcher, first baseman and shortstop -- but volleyball and basketball too, earning multiple school letters in all three sports. In 1997, she was captain of her volleyball team, and in 1998, her senior year, she was team captain in volleyball, basketball and softball. Jennie's softball team won their league championship every year she played with them, and she was named MVP in 1997 and 1998. Thanks to these achievements, Jennie was named her school's Female Athlete of the Year and Athletics Director's Female Athlete of the Year for 1998. Her high school career record was 50 wins, 12 losses, with six perfect games, 13 no-hitters, a 0.15 ERA and 784 strikeouts. Finch had a 2–0 win–loss record in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, striking out 13 batters in eight innings while giving up only one hit, one walk and no runs. Her pitching helped lead the American team to the gold medal. Finch received more votes than Anna Kournikova in an ESPN online poll as the most attractive female athlete. Like Kournikova, Finch has modeled swimwear for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in 2005-06. Finch pitches for the Chicago Bandits of the National Pro Fastpitch softball league. She was named the NPF's Co-Pitcher of the Year in 2005, sharing the award with teammate Lauren Bay.