Pitcher Cat Osterman, one of the final active links to the last U.S. Olympic champion softball team, retired following the National Pro Fastpitch championship game Monday night.
Osterman, 32, took the loss as her USSSA Pride fell to the Chicago Bandits 1-0 in Hoover, Ala.
In 2004, Osterman made her first Olympic team at age 21 while taking a year off from pitching for the University of Texas. She was the youngest player on the team that won gold in Athens.
In 2008, Osterman started the gold-medal game against Japan and gave up the first earned runs by a U.S. pitcher in the tournament. Japan stunned the U.S. 3-1 in what would be Osterman’s final Olympic game.
Before the Beijing Games, baseball and softball had been voted out of the Olympics starting in 2012.
