Osterman comes full circle for Team USA
When Cat Osterman came out of retirement to compete for a spot on USA Softball’s 2020 Olympic team, she was handed jersey number 38, a number better suited to an also-ran than an legitimate Hall of Famer.
Osterman made the team, and she chose to keep the number — 3 for the number of Olympic rosters, 8 for her old number.
It’s also her age.
At a time of life when most pitchers are easing into careers coaching or selling real estate, Osterman is back in the pitcher’s circle this month in Tokyo, searching for a second gold medal with Team USA.
“I never thought I would still be playing at 38,” Osterman said. “But here I am.”
She and lefthander Monica Abbott, 35, are the lone veterans from the 2008 team that lost to Japan in the gold medal game that marked softball’s last appearance in the Olympics. Softball and baseball will be played in Tokyo, each with six teams, but are not on the schedule for Paris 2024.
Osterman, who spent six seasons as an assistant at Texas State and helped the Bobcats win the Sun Belt Conference tournament title in 2018, has been a legend since her days at Cypress Springs High School and with the Katy Cruisers. With the Cruisers, she held the 2000 Olympic team to one run in five innings, striking out 11.
From there she went on to a storied career at Texas, where she was a three-time national
player of the year, and pitched eight years as a professional with a 95-24 record and a 0.91 ERA.
Osterman, however, places great store by her years with USA Softball. She is 69-4 in nine years with the national team and 5-1 in the Olympics, her sole loss coming in the 2008 gold medal game.
“It’s a blessing that I get to put on the USA uniform again,” she said. “When I retired in 2015, my dad said it didn’t feel right that I had grown up in USA Softball and didn’t have a chance to say goodbye the way I wanted to.
“I’m blessed that the opportunity
came about for another Olympics and that things fell in place physically and emotionally to allow me to compete.”
Osterman had one last chance to compete in front of her hometown fans in June, when the Olympic team played a doubleheader at Constellation Field in Sugar Land, allowing one hit in five innings with nine strikeouts.
“She has mastered the art of spinning the ball,” national team head coach Ken Eriksen said. “It’s kind of like watching (Hall of Fame pitcher) Greg Maddux on the mound. She keeps hitters uncomfortable
with spins and speed.”
Today’s softball power pitchers can hit the radar gun at 70 mph from 43 feet. Osterman, Eriksen said, throws from 58 to 65 mph but with pinpoint control.
USA Softball dominated the first three Olympic Games in which the sport was played and was expected to win in 2008 before losing the gold medal game.
Eriksen said the international game has gotten more competitive, which is a mixed blessing. This year’s field includes Japan,
Mexico, Australia, Italy and Canada, and the Canadian, Mexican and Italian teams are wellstocked with NCAA veterans.
“You’ve got American players who did not make our roster who have chips on their shoulder who are playing with other teams,” Eriksen said. “People need to realize that it’s not our country against their country. In some cases, it’s our country against some of our countrymen.”
With veteran pitchers Osterman and Abbott, the U.S. has power hitters in Amanda Chidester and Valerie Alioto and, in Mcclenny, “the most exciting young player in the world,” Eriksen said.
Like Eriksen, Osterman hopes the competition in Tokyo will be sufficient to improve the game’s popularity in Europe, where the game is at its lowest ebb internationally, in hopes of a return to the agenda in Los Angeles in 2028.
She promises, however, that 2021 is her swan song. After one more season with Athletes Unlimited, a new pro league that debuted last year, she will leave the game once more and return to her home in New Braunfels, where she plans to join her husband, Joey Ashley, in the real estate business.
As she showed in her Sugar Land appearance, she still knows how to get batters out for her team and coaches, including two of her former teammates, Laura Berg and Taria Flowers.
“They don’t make me call them ‘Coach,’ ” Osterman said. “But it’s fun having them around.”