US slugger a special power hitter

BEIJING (AP) With her bruising physique and pulverizing swing, she's been called softball's Babe Ruth - with a braided ponytail. She's also got two Olympic gold medals and a heart that's just as golden.

Pitchers fear her. Teammates adore her. Children cherish her.

Crystl Bustos is the biggest hitter on the biggest, baddest women's softball squad ever assembled: the U.S. Olympic team, now two wins away from an almost certain fourth consecutive gold medal.

If Michael Phelps is the athlete of the Beijing Games, well, this is its team. So far.

Just as they did four years ago in Greece, these swinging American sisters are setting a new standard in their sport.

They didn't come to China seeking redemption like the U.S. men hoopsters. Their mission was simple: to leave a lasting, five-ringed stamp on the games before the curtain falls on softball until 2016 at the earliest.

"This team never allows satisfaction to enter its mind," catcher Stacey Nuveman said. "It's never enough."

Having demolished the field over the past week by a combined 53-1, throwing two no-hitters and a perfect game along the way, the Americans (7-0) enter the gold-medal round where they will face Japan (6-1) on Wednesday. The winner advances to Thursday's gold-medal game.

Australia (5-2) plays Canada in the other semifinal. The U.S.-Japan loser will meet the Australia-Canada winner later on Wednesday, with the loser winning bronze.

The U.S. team beat Japan 7-0 in round-robin play, but the Americans didn't face ace right-hander Yukiko Ueno, probably the only pitcher in the tournament who could slide into the Americans' starting rotation.

Ueno was seen thumbing through the Olympic softball media guide the other day while waiting to play. She didn't have to look up anything on Bustos, softball's most unstoppable force for nearly a decade.

This is it for Bustos (pronounced Boo-stos), who has homered four times in China and 12 times in her Olympic career. When the final out is recorded at Fengtai Field, she plans to retire from international competition. She may leave her cleats on the dirt infield, a way of saying goodbye to the Olympics and a game that has allowed the Canyon Country, Calif., native, who remains fearful of flying (and the dark), to see the world.

If she does leave her spikes, she'll place them near third base, her position when she's not the designated hitter.

They belong in the batter's box.

Bustos was born to hit, and no woman in the history of softball has ever hit home runs like she has. A skinny, left-handed slap hitter as a kid, Bustos made herself a power hitter through hard work.

"I saw the parents of the kids who were hitting the home runs and they were smiling and so happy," she said. "I decided I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be the one hitting the long ball and get that effect from people."

A few years back, Bustos hit a home run during a game at Baylor that went over 400 feet.

"A bomb," she said. "So gone."

During his visit to Beijing, U.S. President George W. Bush stayed longer than planned at the U.S. team's practice just so he could watch Bustos take batting practice. She rewarded him with some tape-measure shots into the trees beyond the outfield fence.

And the other day, she had a Ruthian moment against Australia.

Bustos was in the bullpen warming up pitcher Jennie Finch, her roommate on the road. Bustos was due to bat in the sixth inning and needed to get back to the dugout. Finch wanted her to return.

"So I said, 'OK, I'll be right back,'" Bustos said. "'I'm going to go hit a bomb first.'"

She did just that, hitting a two-run homer off Australia's Tanya Harding in the U.S. team's 3-0 win.

"I called it," Bustos said. "Whatever."

Harding, who has handed the U.S. two of its four losses in Olympic history, marvels at Bustos, who is batting .563 (9-for-16) and has scored a record 10 runs in China.

"You can't throw the same pitch at her twice," said Harding, playing in her fourth games. "We have to keep mixing it up. Our goal is just to keep her in the field. It's not so easy to do. She's one of those hitters that, when she's on, she's on."

So how would Bustos pitch to Bustos?

"I wouldn't," she said.

Bustos doesn't mince words. She's a power hitter and straight talker. And on a team of women with sculpted bodies and refined features, the robust, 5-foot-7 Bustos stands out - and not just because of her tattoos. She's the center on a squad of quarterbacks and running backs.

But don't be misled by her ready-to-rumble exterior.

"Bustos is a teddy bear," pitcher Cat Osterman said.

U.S. coach Mike Candrea and her teammates call her Bustos or Boost, not Crystl. They'll tell you she's the friendliest, most generous, most caring, biggest neat freak on the American team. She'll pick up their laundry, draw them pictures, write them notes.

"She will put on the front and act tough and everything," Osterman said, "but if anyone needed anything, she would fly halfway across country to defend any of us."

She's got their backs.

During the U.S. team's 9-0 win over China on Monday, Osterman hit Yu Yanhong with a pitch, and the infielder stared down the left-hander on her way to first base as if she wanted to fight. In the dugout, Bustos was ready.

"Dude, I was halfway over the railing," she said.

Bustos is friendly to anyone, but she'll only invite you inside her world when she's ready.

"I've always had issues with being able to trust people," she said. "You always have really good friends growing up and then they turn on you at some point. That bothers me, so I don't let people in."

One of four children, she felt betrayed when her father, George, spent time in jail when she was a teenager. For a while, Bustos, lost her way. She got into fights, partied too much and got caught stealing.

Her mother, Diana, struggled to make ends meet and Bustos was on the same dead-end path that swallowed up so many kids where she's from.

Softball was her salvation.

Her late uncle, Jesse Rios, and other coaches helped her family with costs so she could play in tournaments for a travel team. It's their generosity that prompted Bustos to start a foundation to fund inner-city kids in softball.

She's already working with groups in Cincinnati and Los Angeles, and Bustos wants to spread to other cities and into other sports like soccer and basketball.

She's got talent, and it's not just in the way she knocks the cover off a softball. Bustos aspired to be artist. As a kid, she'd sit in front of the TV for hours drawing cartoon characters. She's continued drawing, "with pencil, pen, markers, whatever I have around."

And, she's still a kid.

"Just look at me," she said.

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