She started with a famous coach teaching her a knuckleball …
Back in 2005, Chelsea Baker met Joe Niekro, or as she calls him, “Coach Joe.” Niekro was a major league pitcher for 22 years, best known for his knuckleball. When Baker saw Niekro throw the knuckler, she wanted to know how to pitch it. As she was quoted on ESPN’s show E:60, “He’d always say ‘It’s a secret,’ but finally one day he taught it to me and I learned it.” Yeah, she learned it, all right, as hitter after hitter would soon come to realize.
… a pitch that would bring batters to tears …
Baker and her family, who live in Plant City, Fla., have been hearing from opposing players’ parents. As Baker’s mother, Missy Mason Baker, is quoted on ESPN, “‘Go play softball with the girls’ — we get that a lot, and we have gotten that a lot over the last three years.” Most of those parents are probably trying to protect their sons from being victimized by Baker’s wicked pitching. As Baker was quoted, “After I usually strike somebody out with a knuckleball, they sometimes start crying back to the dugout, and a lot of them just like open their mouth like they can’t believe it.” With 127 strikeouts in 60 innings this past season, there probably have been a lot of open mouths and quite a few tears shed.
… and now she can’t lose.
Over the past four years, her Little League teams have lost just eight of their 105 games. But don’t blame Baker, because she has yet to lose a sanctioned game, and she’s pitched not one, but two perfect games. And as she heads into the eighth grade, high school beckons — and that means trying out for the baseball team, which she’ll likely do. According to the ESPN article, Baker wants to eventually play in the pros, and while she’ll likely face the barriers that every woman who wants to play professionally in a male-dominated sport faces, just try and stop her, especially if she keeps bringing batters to tears with that nasty knuckleball.
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Screengrab by EvolveIMG via YouTube.