My Sportsman Choice: Lisa Fernandez

By Kelley King

Lisa Fernandez won her third consecutive gold medal. John Biever/SI  Chris Stone: Red Sox Nation, you've earned this one  Paul Zimmerman: Boy Wonder brought Boston a title  B.J. Schecter: Red Sox captured Boston's heart  Richard Deitsch: The Babe had a big presence in '04  Rick Reilly: Big Papi did it all for the world champs  Jeffri Chadiha: A reward for reversing The Curse  Lisa Altobelli: Ramirez never took anything seriously  • Sportsman of the Year archive

Too bad she represents what remains, despite the unfathomable quickness and reflexes it demands at its highest level, one of the world's most underrappreciated sports. Otherwise, she might be a runaway choice to make SI's cover for the second time since we wisely billed her and her teammates "The Real Dream" on Aug. 30.

At 33, longtime softball queen Lisa Fernandez was the most valuable player on the most dominant team of the 2004 Olympics. Need statistics? During the U.S.'s gold-medal mowdown, Fernandez pitched four games, twice as many as any of her teammates, with a 0.29 ERA. She held Australia to one hit to help the U.S. into the medal round and, once there, tormented the Aussies again, first to reach the finals and then to win her third-straight Olympic title.

And if 70-mph fastballs and dirt-diving drop balls from the mound don't impress, perhaps her power at the plate will. Fernandez, batting cleanup for the U.S., hit .545 during the Games, an Olympic record, and provided just one illustration of why the world's best players in softball (where pitchers are expected to be hitters) outclass their millionaire counterparts in major league baseball.

How about intangibles? While captaining the U.S., Fernandez, a 15-year veteran of international competition, was a rock for head coach Mike Candrea, who had lost his wife to a brain aneurysm a month before the Athens Games. "She's a special player," said a teary Candrea after he made a last-minute decision to pitch Fernandez in the gold medal game. "She's our Tiger Woods. When I told her, 'Lisa, you got the ball,' it was an easy decision on my part because I can't think of anyone better in a big game."

Softball was my obsession as a kid in Valley Forge, Pa., and Fernandez has been my idol since she taught a pitching and hitting clinic there during my junior year of high school. I recall her as extremely patient and kind, until she humored us with a throwing demonstration, at which point she transformed into the most frighteningly skilled specimen I had ever seen.

Back then, she had just capped a four-time All-America career at UCLA, and was already an ambassador for the sport. More than a decade later, she proved herself to be at the top of her game, and -- in fewer circles than she should be -- a talent befitting of legend.

Sports Illustrated will announce the 2004 Sportsman of the Year winner on FOX on November 28. Check back every weekday until then to read more Sportsman picks from SI writers.