Softball’s best and brightest drop national ties to focus on pro league

Imagine if Major League Baseball had access to its biggest and brightest stars only some of the time.

Say you went to a White Sox game to see Paul Konerko. Well, he might be there, he might not be. Same for (hmm, let me think here) Carlos Marmol at a Cubs game. Hit or miss.

To be clear, this wouldn’t be a matter of your favorite players being on the disabled list. They also wouldn’t be serving some kind of suspension or sitting out because of a contract dispute.

Simply put, they would be unavailable to play huge chunks of the season because of previous commitments.

Uh, previous commitments? Just what kind of previous commitments would a baseball player have during baseball season?

More baseball, of course. With the U.S. national team.

Just play along here. Pretend that baseball was still in the Olympics and that major-leaguers were allowed to participate.

It’s a romantic idea, but one that is likely never to happen. I can’t see the best and the brightest pro baseball stars missing dozens of MLB games in order to practice and compete for Team USA.

That’s bad business for them, and for MLB.

And yet, until now, the most elite professional women’s softball players in this country have chosen Team USA over their pro league again and again and again.

On Wednesday, the remaining players from the 2008 Olympic team, as well as the other players on the current national team, announced that they collectively came to the decision to leave USA Softball and play exclusively for National Pro Fastpitch.

Honestly, it’s a no-brainer for the players, who were still playing in international tournaments for USA Softball even though the hope of playing in the Olympics was gone since softball was removed from the Olympic agenda for the 2012 Games, and perhaps indefinitely.

But more notably, this is a move that could mean the difference between life and death for the NPF, which includes a local team, the Chicago Bandits.

“To thrive, the NPF needs the help of the biggest names in softball,” two-time Olympic medalist and NPF star Jessica Mendoza wrote on an ESPN blog.

Yep. That’s it, in a nutshell.

The NPF has been operating under its current format for about eight years and has, for many reasons, led a very tenuous existence, not the least of which is this star power issue.

Never once has even one team in the league played an entire season with all of its best players in tow from start to finish.

Talk about bad business.

But the NPF’s hands have been tied.

Most athletes are enamored by the chance to compete for their country. You can’t blame them for that. And because the NPF can’t promise the kind of money or security that, say, Major League Baseball can, the commitment and loyalty that the NPF’s U.S. national team players have had for USA Softball often took precedence over anything NPF-related.

“As players, we have tried to play with both the U.S. national team and the NPF,” Mendoza wrote. “But as in any endeavor, you cannot make something the best unless you give it 110 percent.

“As much as I want to see softball return to the Olympic Games, there is something this sport needs even more: an opportunity for women to play softball for a living. Not as a side job. Not just recreationally.

“I have seen more and more women in other sports create opportunities to play for a living. My dream now is to create these same opportunities for every young softball player out there.”

Mendoza says that the decision-making process that she and her national team teammates went through was gut-wrenching. They’ve loved representing their country. They love USA Softball.

But they are happy to be blazing a new trail.

NPF owners are happy, too, to say the least.

“It’s going to help tremendously to have those faces in the league day in and day out. It’s something that needed to happen,” said Bandits owner Bill Sokolis, who recently negotiated a new stadium deal for his team in Rosemont. “It hurt us a lot not to have our best players — players like Jennie Finch and Vicky Galindo — around all the time. One year, we were without as many as six players because they were with the national team.

“Now, fans are really going to get a better idea of the talent level in this league and what the NPF is all about.”