Belles of The Ball

By Andrea Bushee

Monday, June 26, 2006

Telegraph, The (Nashua, NH)

June 26, 2006
Section: Amherst

When Erika Fotino's father first asked if she wanted to try out for a women's baseball league, she was reluctant. Fotino, of Raymond, has been playing baseball with males since she was about 6 and thought women might play a different kind of game than the boys she is used to playing with.

"They don't," she said. "They are rugged."

Fotino, 16, was among about 40 women trying out for spots on the four teams in the North American Women's Baseball League on Sunday afternoon. The final tryouts, held in the Hampshire Dome in Milford, drew people from as far as Australia and about 10 women from New Hampshire. The league, formally based in Lynn, Mass., will now play in Nashua after Nashua Pride owner John Stabile agreed to back the league financially.

The league is made of up four teams, with about 15 women on each team. Games will play mainly before and after Pride games at Holman Stadium in Nashua.

The women trying out Sunday ranged in age, occupation and skill, but they all had a passion for the game and were excited to have an opportunity to play baseball.

"I've never played softball," said Fotino.

She is currently on the varsity team at Raymond High School, and every year the varsity softball coach tries to"I like baseball better," she said. "It's more competitive."

She started playing with boys when she was young because her mother worked nights and her father had no choice but to bring her to her older brother's baseball games and practices, she said. The boys started to let her play with them, and she never stopped.

There have been a few obstacles for her, said her father and mother, David and Cindy Fotino. At one game, the third base coach told the outfielders to move in when she came up to bat, Cindy Fotino said. Erika responded by smacking the ball over the outfielders' heads.

Another time, a coach on a different team started to ask why she was pitching and whether the team ran out of boys to pitch, her father said.

But other than that, Fotino has had a good run with the boys, they said.

Now she is excited to play with other women, and her parents said she fell in love with Holman Stadium when she saw it.

Pride General Manager Robin Wallace is the director of the women's league, as well as a player. She said she's excited Stabile gave them a chance to play, since the league would have most likely folded if he hadn't stepped in.

Janet Miller of Medford, Mass., has been playing with the league since 1999. Up until then, she, like Fotino, had to play with the guys.

Miller, 42, started playing in men's leagues in 1994, she said. She was never trying to make a statement by playing on men's teams, she added, she did it because she loved baseball.

But when she heard there was a women's league starting up, she was thrilled.

"I love that there's a place for girls to play now. They have the option. If they're a baseball player, they play baseball," she said.

She would have loved to play in high school, she said, but that was not a choice for her as it is for some girls now. She had to play fast pitch softball instead. She hopes that young girls will look at the league and see it as an opportunity for them.

"We want girls to know we don't have to just play softball," she said. "They have got something to do after little league."
If you go The North American Women's Baseball League, made up of four teams, the Outlaws, Ravens, Seahawks and Saints, will hold its season-opening games. Around 60 women play in the league, and range in age from teens to 40s.
Where: Holman Stadium in Nashua
When: July 2, starting at 6 p.m., right after the Pride game, which starts at 2:05 p.m.
The Outlaws and the Seahawks will match up first, followed by the Saints and Ravens.
Cost: Admission is free.