Angels in the Outfield?

"YOU PLAY BALL LIKE A GIRL!"

Slow your roll, Ham.  It's been 23 years since "The Sandlot" coined the end-all burn little bros the world over grew up spouting off in dugouts since Little League, but it doesn't bring quite the same heat these days.  In fact, it hardly qualifies as a burn in 2016.

That's because girls across the globe are proving with talent and opportunity, baseball ain't just for boys anymore.

This week, Independent Professional ballclub, the Sonoma Stompers, signed not one, but two, female players to contracts, offering fresh evidence that women are indeed inching the needle, however slightly, towards "Long Hurr, Don't Curr" in The Big Show.   

17-year-old outfielder/pitcher Kelsie Whitmore from Temecula, CA, and 25-year-old pitcher/infielder Stacy Piagno from St. Augustine, FL, were recruited by the Stompers, (in association with business partner Francis Ford Coppola’s Virginia Dare Winery) to bring some much-needed national attention to the fact that there are chicks out there who can do more than just hold their own against the dudes on the diamond.
 

I like to imagine the recruitment process played out JUST like this.

But, while Kelsie and Stacy might be the most recent examples of ladies in baseball, they're hardly the first.

We millennials got a taste of what kind of damage they can do back in 2014, when a plucky little scamp named Mo'ne Davis started mowing down the boys like Catfish Hunter at the Little League World Series. 

With a fastball that touched 70mph (equal to 93mph on a full-sized diamond) and a deuce that could buckle knees like Kershaw, Mo'ne became the first girl in history to earn a win for her team in the LWS,  a shut-out, no less, which was another first. 

In 1972, Maria Pepe became the first girl to start in a Little League game, but she was removed when an opposing team demanded her removal.  

Mo'ne's poise and dominance against the hapless bros, especially under the glare of the national spotlight, proved a massive shot in the arm for public perception in terms of what girls could accomplish in our national pastime.  Girlfriend just flashed onto the scene like a bolt of lightning and for awhile, at least, people were abuzz about her, and the possibilities she symbolized.

Sure, it was only Little League, but Mo'ne Davis's shooting-star performance  had people suddenly wondering whether women could achieve that sort of success in advanced levels of the game.  

Well, we're only two years removed from that LWS and we've already got some answers to that question.  

Scholastic, Collegiate, Olympic?  Check, check, check.  

To be fair, only a handful of examples isn't enough to imply we'll see one in the highest echelons of MLB in the next 20, or even 30 years.  But, I do believe there's been enough progress made to one day imagine some badass chick trotting out of the bullpen, spurting a big glot of Redman-juice in the dirt, and toeing up the rubber at PNC Park. 

But, don't take my word for it.  

Just this year, Clint Hurdle, manager of my favorite ball-club and yours, the Pittsburgh Pirates, was quoted in the Beaver County Times declaring, "I still believe firmly there is going to be a day where there is a female player in the big leagues. I got that. Where it goes, I don't know. I don't believe I'll be in the dugout to see it."   

Ehhh, not exactly a rosy timeline offered by The Gipper, I guess, but the guy is easily one of the most progressive, cerebral managers in all of baseball.  So, I tend to listen if Clint says he truly believes that one day there's more than just a chance. 

And as a wise man named Lloyd Christmas has taught all of us: A chance, even one in a million, is enough to keep up hope.

So, three cheers for fearless ballers like Mo'ne Davis, Kelsie Whitmore, Stacy Piagno, and idealistic organizations like the Sonoma Stompers, for continuing to give hope to every little girl in the world that dreams of patrolling center-field like Andrew McCutchen, lighting up the gun like Arrieta, or tearing the cover off the ball like Bryce Harper.  

Keep kicking ass.  

Keep sending the Ham Porters of the world back to the bench with tears of embarrassment after three straight whiffs.