[Vision2020] Perfect Game Gives Girl a Spot in Baseball Hall

Sat Jul 9 14:32:52 PDT 2005

For the record, a perfect game is retiring all batters
 faced (not necessarily all by strikeout) without
anyone reaching base safely and there have been only
17 perfect games in the history of Major League
Baseball.  The last one thrown by the Great Randy
Johnson for Arizona against Atlanta on May 18th 2004. 
The only rarer feat in baseball is an unassisted
triple play.  There have been 12 of these in MLB
history.  But then again, two weeks ago (June 24 2005
to be exact) the New York Mets had 3 sacrifice fly
balls in one inning...a first in National League
history.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/mariners/mlb/story/4973663p-4545201c.html

But back to the perfect game which is an amazing
accomplishment.  Retiring all batters faced via
strikeout is an incredible accomplishment.  Hall of
fame type of incredible for sure.

And for my last useless piece of baseball trivia for
the day (I promise), the minor league record for
strikeouts in a 9-innning game is held by Ron Necciai
who in 1952 struck out 27 batters (one batter reached
first on a strike three passed ball, one batter
grounded out to second base).

http://www.blueridgecountry.com/necciai/

Has anyone noticed that the Mariners are riding a
2-game winning streak?  Oops...so much for the promise
of no more trivia.  Also, I hope I didn't just jinx
them...

-Scott

--- Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:

> >From today's (July 9, 2005) Spokesman Review -
> 
> An article you are not likely to read on Dale
> Courtney's Brainless Log
> (BLog) any time soon.
> 
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Perfect game gives girl a spot in baseball Hall 
> 12-year-old pitcher struck out all 18 batters she
> faced in game
> 
> John Kekis
> Associated Press
> 
> July 9, 2005
> 
> COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - Two months ago, Katie Brownell
> was just happy to be
> playing Little League ball with all of her boy
> friends. Now, she's a Hall of
> Famer.
> 
> Sort of.
> 
> The 12-year-old Brownell, who etched her name in
> baseball lore when she
> tossed a perfect game on May 14, striking out all 18
> batters she faced in a
> six-inning game, on Thursday donated the No. 3
> jersey she wore that day to
> the Baseball Hall of Fame. The jersey will be placed
> on display in the
> museum's Today's Game exhibit and later will become
> part of either the Women
> in Baseball exhibit or Youth Baseball exhibit.
> 
> With 40 people from back home in Batavia, N.Y., and
> scores of visitors to
> the Hall of Fame watching the brief ceremony, it was
> obvious Katie would
> have been much more comfortable somewhere else,
> perhaps on a mound.
> 
> Somehow, she overcame her shyness just enough.
> 
> "This has been a great time," said Brownell, who
> also donated a glove and a
> game ball to the Little League Museum. "I'd like to
> thank God, my parents,
> Little League and all my fans. It's a real honor.
> It's really cool."
> 
> The perfect performance by Brownell, the only girl
> in the Oakland-Alabama
> Little League, appears to have been unique.
>  
> "As near as we can tell, it may be the first time
> it's happened," said Lance
> Van Auken, spokesman for Little League
> International. "Since girls have been
> allowed to play Little League (1974), 30 million
> games have been played, so
> there's no way to go back. But this got a lot of
> media attention, and we
> haven't had anybody come to us and say, 'My daughter
> did that.' "
> 
> That Katie even had the chance was due in large part
> to the woman sitting
> beside her. Maria Pepe, now 45, was invited to join
> the celebration, and she
> fought back tears every time she blinked.
> 
> Pepe blazed the trail for girls to play Little
> League ball. As an
> 11-year-old pitcher and outfielder, she played three
> games for the Hoboken
> (N.J.) Young Democrats in 1971. But when parents
> began to complain, Little
> League headquarters intervened and threatened to
> pull the Hoboken league's
> charter if Pepe continued to play and she was forced
> out.
> 
> The case eventually went to court and was resolved
> in her favor two years
> later, but by then Pepe was too old to play.
> 
> "I feel like this is a healing for me. It's come,
> like, full circle," Pepe
> said. "After the ruling came out, I was too old to
> play, but my dad said,
> 'You have to think about all the girls that will
> follow.' I don't think I
> really understood."
> 
> Pepe's case indeed opened the door for girls. In
> 1974, 30,000 girls were
> playing Little League ball. Today the number has
> soared to 400,000.
> 
> "I'm very sentimental about my youthful experience
> because it was a little
> hurtful," said Pepe, a hospital accountant in
> Hoboken who still plays
> softball. "It took me a while as an adult to kind of
> reconcile it. I got
> caught up in the controversy and I wasn't judged as
> an individual. That's
> what I like about the outreach to Katie. She's just
> being congratulated for
> what she did. I just think that's a wonderful
> thing."
> 
> Apparently, not everybody back home does.
> 
> "At the beginning, I think it was stressful," said
> Katie's mother, Denise
> Bischoff. "A lot of people got very upset with the
> whole thing, putting her
> in the spotlight above other people, and I think
> it's because she's a girl.
> 
> "But I think today it really sunk in, how great this
> all is," Bischoff said.
> "She's really excited, so many kids coming up to her
> and telling her she's
> their hero. It really hits you inside."
> 
>
---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Take care, Moscow.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> My Spouse's Significant Other
> 
> 
> "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the
> intention of arriving
> safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but
> rather to skid in
> sideways, chocolate in one hand, a drink in the
> other, body thoroughly used
> up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO. What a
> ride!'"
> 
> 
>
_____________________________________________________
>  List services made available by First Step
> Internet, 
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. 
>  
>                http://www.fsr.net                   
>    
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
> 