Good as gold

Wednesday, June 30, 2004 | 9:55 a.m.

Las Vegan Lori Harrigan will be attempting to her win her third gold medal with the USA Olympic softball team. Following are some of her career highlights:

2003: Gold medalist at the Pan American Games, tossed perfect game vs. Bahamas.

2002: Gold medalist at International Softball Federation world championships.

2000: Gold medalist at Olympic games in Sydney, first pitcher to throw a solo no-hitter in Olympic history (vs. Canada).

1999: Gold medalist at Pan American games, 2-0 record with 0.50 ERA. Won ASA national championship with California Commotion. First team ASA All-American.

1998: Gold medalist at ISF World Championships, 2-0 record with 0.00 ERA.

1996: Gold medalist at Olympic games in Atlanta.

1995: Gold medalist at the Pan American Games, 2-0 record with 0.00 ERA.

1994: Gold medalist at the ISF World Championships, 2-0 record with 0.00 ERA.

College: Led UNLV to three NCAA tournament berths and two College World Series appearances. Holds career records for wins (83), saves (7), strikeouts (725), ERA (0.77), complete games (123), shutouts (53) and innings pitched (1,036).

Source: USA Softball

In that she and her Team USA teammates have been crisscrossing the country since February and are in the middle of their "Aiming For Athens" grassroots tour that will see them playing softball in towns where only a Greyhound bus might stop, you would think Las Vegas' Lori Harrigan might be happy that the Olympic Games are just six weeks away.

But in that she will be retiring after the final out is made in Greece -- hopefully with a third gold medal around her neck -- she said playing ball against a bunch of rubes in Normal, Ill., or Stevens Point, Wis., suddenly doesn't seem so tedious.

"It's been kind of an emotional year for me, because I am retiring," Harrigan said last week over an iced latte during a rare eight-day break in the tour schedule. The respite ended Monday night in St. Louis, where Harrigan pitched a two-hit shutout, striking out 11, in a 6-0 victory against yet another so-called team of all-stars as Team USA extended its tour record to 41-0 and pre-Olympic tour win streak to a Globetrotters-like 155 games.

"It's been an emotional year, because there are a lot of last things I've been doing," Harrigan said.

Last things such as saying goodbye to the staff at the Team USA Olympic Training Center in San Diego, which Harrigan recently did.

"I went to turn my key in and one of the ladies said 'we'll see you next time' and I said 'no, this is my last time here as an athlete,' and she just started crying real hard," said Harrigan, a stylish blond lefty and one of four pitchers that heavily favored Team USA will take to Greece.

Harrigan is one of only four members of the current Olympic team that played together in Atlanta in '96. She said those teammates are more like sisters to her, which only makes it more difficult to say so-long.

"When we do go home, it's like you are missing part of your family, so that's going to be the toughest," said Harrigan, the former UNLV star who at 33, is the oldest member of Team USA.

But, if anything, she's probably in better shape now than when she was mowing down Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State batters with her rise ball and wicked change-up at old Rebel Diamond in the middle of the UNLV campus.

Harrigan said physically, there's little doubt she could play at the highest level for four more years. But mentally, she is just as sure she has had enough. In that she has been playing competitive softball since age 5, Harrigan said she is eager to see what life looks like beyond the pitching rubber.

Her career with the international team has taken her to some exotic locales. She's seen Japan and China and Australia and Italy, all more than once, but only as a ballplayer, and never with a camera around her neck.

"There's going to be an adjustment," Harrigan said, "but I think it's an adjustment I'm ready for. One of the things I can't wait to do is go on vacation without my softball equipment."

Another thing to which she is looking forward, as strange as it sounds, is being able to take a cold remedy when necessary. Due to the comprehensive list of banned substances by which Olympic athletes must abide, Harrigan said you almost can't take a Flintstones vitamin without it compromising your eligibility.

Fighting off a case of the sniffles she had contracted in Topeka, Kan., Harrigan said Team USA's biggest headache in Athens might turn out to be the IOC pharmacists.

"Even most vitamins are taken at your own risk," she literally sniffed.

Those nuisances notwithstanding, it's not as if Harrigan, who was the first pitcher to throw a solo no-hitter in Olympic history (against Canada in Sydney in 2000), plans to turn her back on the game that makes her semi-famous every four years.

She said she would be surprised if she didn't wind up giving private pitching lessons or better yet, free clinics to young girls who aspire to be like her.

"I think it's going to be fun for me when I retire, too, because it's going to give me an opportunity to give back to my sport -- I just don't know in what facet yet," she said.

Harrigan was contacted last year about returning to UNLV as head softball coach but with 2004 being an Olympic year, the timing wasn't right. Besides, she said it would have been difficult to leave the Bellagio hotel-casino, where she is a security supervisor when she's not touring.

Actually, even when she is touring.

It would have been impossible, Harrigan said, to continue her international career without the support of her employer, which still sends her a paycheck, even when she's off playing ball in a foreign land.

"Bellagio has been so good to me," she said. "I don't think I would have made these last two Olympics if it wasn't for their support. We don't make a lot of money, you know, and I've got to pay my mortgage and stuff."

In 1997, Harrigan, who grew up in Anaheim, Calif., bought a home near Silverado High School in the southeast part of town. But she says she has considered Las Vegas her home almost from the day she set foot on the UNLV campus in 1989. Her teammates call her "Vegas" and that's the way she lists her hometown in the program, much to the consternation of her parents who still make their home in Southern California.

"I love this town," she said, looking out over Eastern Avenue as the busy afternoon traffic jockeyed for position.

But Harrigan said if there's one thing she loves even more than her adopted hometown, it's playing softball for her country.

"The other night, some of us were talking and watching the major league (baseball) games on TV and the question came up whether you would rather be a major league ballplayer, and make all the money they do, or be a female and play in the Olympics but not have anywhere near the financial rewards," she said. "And you know, I would take this 10 times over."

Harrigan said every time she has felt like putting her gear on a slow boat to China, all it took to get her going again were the three letters on the front of her jersey.

"I think I retire every year," she said. "But once that Olympic spirit gets into your blood, it's hard to let it go. I think that's why I'm having such a hard time letting go right now, because the pride of playing with 'USA' across your chest is so ... "

Harrigan's voiced trailed off, as trying to find the right word to sum up her Olympic career suddenly seemed more difficult than trying to get along with the top of the Australian batting order.

"All I know is I still get chills when I listen to the national anthem," she said.

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