Virginia Tech’s Angela Tincher pulls the greatest upset never seen

A decade ago, Angela Tincher of Virginia Tech pulled the greatest upset never seen.

Virginia Tech? I can see you scratching your head. The greatest upset is one thing – a higher level example would be Buster Douglas’ upset of Mike Tyson. But what does “the greatest upset never seen” even mean? How about Figley’s Hardware over Crossroads Sunoco in the Follansbee, WV Little League Championship in 1977? (There were two observers.) No, let’s consider something high-profile enough to be televised, but almost entirely forgotten except by the actual participants in the contest and some of their relatives.

I have one. It occurred nearly a decade ago. And it is fitting to recall it now since the World Baseball Softball Confederation has just announced that their Women’s Baseball World Cup will be played in August in Viera, FL. This wasn’t a baseball game, however, but a women’s softball contest.

Let me set the scene instead of making you guess the game. Even knowing the sport, you wouldn’t name it in a week…

On July 5, 2008, my family was away, and I had the TV to myself.

The noon listing for ESPN that day read, mysteriously, “NPF All-Stars v. Team USA.” What could that be? It turned out to be…softball.

With no one around to veto my TV choice in favor of another Hannah Montana appearance, I tuned in. The contest lined up the US Women’s Softball Team against the young ladies from Virginia Tech. Oddly, Tech had been forced to travel to Oklahoma City for the presumed opportunity to be stomped by an exceptional national squad.

Team USA was prepping for the Beijing Olympics against college teams, and many of the women on the roster had been playing for their Soviet-style team for years. More than a few of them were in the age range when major league baseball players hit their peaks, roughly 25 to 28.

The poor Hokies of recently tragic Virginia Tech were, of course, 18 to 22. Maybe there was a 23-year-old on the squad. They would face what one ESPN writer later called “the planet’s best lineup.”

The Pitchers

The highest profile athlete in her sport at the time, Jennie Finch, was in the circle for Team USA. Ms. Finch, who appears on camera to be about 6-foot-8, threw pitches in the 65-70 mph range (read, 90-95 mph baseball pitches) and must have seemed to batters to be coming from about 35 feet away – because she nearly was, once she finished her pitching stride. But the great Finch was a bit off. Virginia Tech scratched out an early run – 1-0.

For the Hokies…well, for two innings, who even took notice? The sparse crowd seemed only vaguely interested. At the end of the third, however, I finally did catch the name of VT’s pitcher because, after a lineup turns over without a hit, well, then… The young lady’s name was Angela Tincher. She had a graceful but quick release. Batters likely considered her sneaky fast.

So, what happened?

Nobody Was Watching

More from Call to the Pen

• Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
• Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
• Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
• 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals

Sorry, guys, you missed it. “It” means a lot of flailing beneath those red, white and blue batting helmets. Round about the 5^th inning, one of the TV broadcasters decided to jinx Virginia Tech, saying aloud that Angela Tincher no-hitting the national team would “arguably” be the greatest upset in Team USA history.

Wrong. It would have been the greatest upset in softball history, and that designation encompasses millions of players. The 250 fans in Oklahoma City were holding their breath. Both of us in the rest of the country were, too.

In the seventh inning, Angela Tincher had to face Natasha Watley (UCLA, ’05), Jessica Mendoza (Stanford, ’02) and Crystl “The Baby Fridge” Bustos (Palm Beach CC, “one of the most feared hitters in the World,” per the Team USA website that day).

All three of these hitters carried .380+, international-competition, career batting averages. Watley grounded out to third, Jessica Mendoza struck out (Angela Tincher’s 10th such victim), and Bustos popped up. Throwing hard even at the very end, Tincher ended a single walk off a perfect game.

She had no-hit the national team, and no one was watching. She and her teammates had just snapped a 185-game winning streak, the national team’s pre-Olympic (exhibition) streak. That streak was 12 years old.

A fabulous irony was that Tincher had just been cut from Team USA.

Next: Red Sox and city of Boston rename Yawkey Way

Years later I found out that I had been watching a repeat broadcast. The game had actually been played in March ’08, but those couple of months meant little since I was ignorant of the lapse at the time.

This win by Virginia Tech was perhaps the greatest upset in team sports history at a high level, but should at least be considered the greatest upset never seen.