Baribeau to try stock car racing
Talk is cheap
The can of worms has been opened. Now, radio sports talk show host Rachel Baribeau is again prepared to try another sport she chats about on the ESPN affiliate in Columbus, Gia.
Earlier this month, she became the first known woman to participate in a professional football training camp. She made it through five days of two-a-day practices before being medically released with a couple of injuries.
This time, Baribeau has agreed to drive a stock car at the Rockingham Speedway in North Carolina. She will learn to drive with an instructor before racing alone at speeds of up to 140 mph.
End of an era
The face of American softball is Jennie Finch, a pitcher for the Chicago Bandits and an Olympic gold medalist.
But before there was Finch, there was Lisa Fernandez.
Fernandez was softball's signature star for more than a decade, first gaining international notice in 1996 when she helped the United States clinch an Olympic gold medal as a reliever.
She also was America's top pitcher at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, when the team outscored the competition 51-1.
That will likely be her last Olympic memory. The 37-year-old Fernandez was interested in one last go-around but was informed this week that she didn't make the U.S. team's final 15-player roster for the Beijing Games.
She had missed three years of international competition to start a family. Her son Antonio is now 2.
Fernandez had admitted within the last month that she was struggling to regain her form, but said that she believed she could still compete at a high level.
"I think I still have it," Fernandez said. "I think the advantage I have is my experience. I have the heart."
The U.S. team consists of only three pitchers, including Finch and Cat Osterman, an assistant softball coach at DePaul.
-- Patricia Babcock McGraw