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We continue our list of the Top 15 Softball Stories of 2019, which will run through December 31st when we’ll present our No. 1 story of the year.
Here are the previous stories (clink on link to read):
- #15… Team USA Dominates Summer Competition… with One Exception
- #14… USA Softball’s 2020 Stand Beside Her Tour… Taking the Brand Nationwide
We’ve surveyed the softball community and talked internally as well to come up with what were the most impactful and relevant stories of the year pertaining to the world of fastpitch softball.
Where applicable, we are providing links to the original articles and/or references when the story first happened.
Today’s story… #13: Sam Show had an electric 2019 as she shined in the circle and with the bat to lead Oklahoma State to the Women’s College World Series, but it will be her trademark bat flips and tomahawk bat spikes after hitting massive home runs that she’ll forever be remembered for…
To provide comments, insights or thoughts, email: [email protected].
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Sam Show added a jolt of energy-and some controversy–into the 2019 college softball season with her electric performances that carried into the Women’s College World Series and ultimately earned her the title “The Queen of the Bat Flips.”
Show finished her college career by leading Oklahoma State into the WCWS both with clutch pitching performances and timely big home runs, but it was her reactions after the home runs that garnered her world-wide fame.
Here’s one such post-home run bat flip:
We're HERE for the Samantha Show bat flip 😤 pic.twitter.com/Mf0a6zpRhN
— espnW (@espnW) May 17, 2019
And then came what was termed the “Sam Show Bat Smash” as she spiked her bat into the ground and drew comparisons to Thor and his mighty hammer, Mjölnir (yes, we had to look that up) at a time when the Avengers: Endgame movie released in April was spiking too (it would go on to make $2.8 billion at the box office).
Samantha Show is LITERALLY ON ANOTHER PLANET 🤯#WCWS | @CowgirlSB pic.twitter.com/7dtJ54Gzag
— NCAA Softball (@NCAAsoftball) May 31, 2019
Sam’s success was box office gold as well, as she became the talk of the summer, not least of all because she put up a huge senior season both in the circle and at the plate.
She clubbed 20 home runs with 56 RBIs and hit .333 on the offensive side. In the circle, the OSU senior went 22-10 and a 2.34 ERA with 110 K’s in 200.1 innings pitched. She also had 21 complete games of the 33 she started.
Like in baseball, there was some talk among “purists” that the senior’s demonstrative bat flips after her prodigious home runs could be showing up the opponent, but the two-way star explained in an interview with MLB.com that the flips weren’t planned, they were simply an expression of excitement in the moment.
“I don’t practice it, I don’t plan it,” she explained. “Whatever emotions are going on inside me, that’s kinda what the bat does. It tumbles a lot, or I flip it, or I toss it in the air. None of the bat flips have actually been the same, which I think is pretty cool. It’s just the emotion that’s coming out in me. I don’t really know what else to do with the emotion. It just kind comes out through my bat.”
The flip, spike or what the hitter herself described as “tomahawking my bat into my dugout” took the social media world by storm. After the huge extra inning home run against Florida in the WCWS—her second of two in the game—Show’s video clips transcended softball and the ESPN highlight shorts made her an international sports celebrity overnight.
No words 😳#WCWS | @CowgirlSB pic.twitter.com/U1OZOhGKzY
— NCAA Softball (@NCAAsoftball) May 31, 2019
No surprise, then, that as of today Show has 16.5K followers on Instagram and nearly 6,400 on Twitter. And some of her bat flip videos on social media attracted over 400K views.
The Texas native had no second thoughts or a hint of regret for her spontaneous celebrations, saying: “I’m not gonna change who I am to please the people who don’t like it. If they don’t like it, they don’t have to watch it. My team supports me 100 percent. I don’t need approval from anybody else. I have my team, my fans and my family and that’s all I need.”
She further told interviewer Matt Monoll in the MLB interview that she ignored the naysayers and didn’t put a lot of weight into the criticisms.
“If people wanna go on Twitter and talk trash about a 22-year-old girl who’s going out there and living her dreams, those people have bigger problems.”
After the season ended on June 1 with a loss to Washington in the World Series, Show signed with the Scrap Yard Fast Pitch independent pro team based in Conroe, Texas and played in high-profile events like the USA Softball International Cup, the Canada Cup and the six-game series of games versus the USA Women’s National Team.
Upon her signing announced June 3rd, Connie May, who oversees the Scrap Yard Fast Pitch program said, “While some say Sam is polarizing, I was impressed by how she ignored the critics and just played the game, especially in the WCWS where her performance silenced a lot of the critics. I guess it’s kind of hard to talk with your jaw dropped open.”
“Sam has been this passionate since she was a young athlete growing up in the Houston area. She will bring a level of versatility to our team and keep fans on the edge of their seats waiting to see more of the greatest show on earth!”
This week May added: “Once Sam understood disrespect of the game and respect of the game, she became an icon for bringing bat flips to fastpitch softball. Once she realized that walking in conjunction with bat flipping is disrespectful, but bat flipping to energize the crowd and her team is entertainment.”
Here’s more on Sam from our coverage on Extra Inning Softball…
*** Scroll down to see excerpts from many of the recaps and stories we’ve done on Sam Show this year…