It's Good to Throw Like a Girl

By Rebecca Winters

At 11, KATIE BROWNELL already knows how to keep boys from reaching first base. Brownell--the lone girl in her upstate New York Little League program--pitched the first perfect game in the history of the league, on May 14. The young hurler struck out all 18 batters, leading her team, the Dodgers, to a six-inning, 11-0 victory over the Yankees in Oakfield, N.Y. The shy sixth-grader, who honed her skills playing with her two elder brothers, also boasts a .714 batting average. Sometimes during the season, her mother told reporters, Brownell's teammates teased her, saying she should have stuck to softball like the other girls. We would now like to invite those boys to stick to cheerleading.