Jordy Bahl, revolutionary
The best player, on the best team, with half her eligibility remaining, going home. It makes all the sense in the world and it's never happened before.
The thing about Jordy Bahl?
You know, other than an amazing two Sooner seasons, a couple national championships, a just finished historic Women’s College World Series in which she performed feats no pitcher’s performed in forever, even the four most famous to come through the event, Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman, Monica Abbott and Keilani Ricketts?
She gets to do this.
She gets to take her ball and go home to Nebraska where maybe she’ll have the Huskers in the World Series as soon as next season.
No, it’s not entirely clear where she’s headed, though this was part of her message delivered via Twitter around noon Monday.
“I have decided to return home and play the game I love, closer to the things that have made me who I am,” she wrote, “and that have always been more important to me than this game.”
Yes, there appears to be a boyfriend.
If both her and Husker pitcher Trey Frahm’s Instagrams are to be believed, they sure look like a thing, a picture of them together each one’s newest addition to their accounts.
Papillion, Bahl’s hometown, is a suburb of Omaha, city of the Creighton Blue Jays, a Division I softball program, too, out of the Big East, but would Bahl really land there?
Unlikely.
The Jays lost more than they won this season.
We must presume Lincoln, home of the Huskers, who might be one great pitcher away from the World Series after a 36-22 campaign, a 13-10 Big Ten Conference mark and an extended stay at the Stillwater Regional, bouncing both Maryland-Baltimore County and 21st-ranked Wichita State out of the postseason before succumbing to the Cowgirls.
She gets to do it.
She gets to do it without anybody doubting her motives, judgment, loyalty or commitment. She gets to do it anyway, but she really gets to do it for all she accomplished and delivered for the program she’s departing.
The other thing about Jordy Bahl?
She’s making history.
She’s the first to do it.
She’s a revolutionary.
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