From Fengtai Softball Field

From a U.S.-Venezuela softball game on Tuesday. More on ESPN The Blog. (The early game was Taipei vs. Canada, in which the Canadian pitcher had a no-hitter through five.)

More pictures:

And… hey, look, it’s Jennie Finch!

I’d just like to say that I can completely understand why Finch is popular. She doesn’t always come off as the most articulate on TV — thus knocking her down a couple notches in my book — but she has an aura on the field that’s hard to capture, even on magazine covers. You just always know where she is on the field, who she is. It’s her long legs, the American blond hair, the way she struts on the field, claps her hand, winds up her hips — it’s all of that put together. I can imagine the first journalist to peer upon her and think, Hey, she would be great posing in a swimsuit. Then it happened, and that’s how a personality got launched. Now she’s the face of softball.

Is it better that she and not, say, Crystl Bustos, the Babe Ruth of softball, is the face of the sport? Well, it sure doesn’t hurt that Finch is darn good: she struck out five in four innings and didn’t allow a hit.

More photos and videos:

Chinese Taipei’s Chiu-Ching Li homers in the bottom of the 7th for her team’s only run in a 6-1 loss to Canada. How ’bout props to me for catching this — a home run, for crying out loud — live.

UPDATE: Because NBC said so…

U.S.A.’s Crystl Bustos circling the bases after a home run:

Bustos’s hard single in her next at-bat: