A 13-year-old has made history by becoming the first little-league baseball player to make the iconic cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, an honour many feted sportsmen and women never achieved in their entire careers. Oh, and did I mention she is a girl!
Mo’ne Davis hit the national headlines across America after she used her signature 70 mph fastball to throw a shutout in the Mid-Atlantic Final that sent her Philadelphia Taney Dragons to the World Series. She followed that up by becoming the first girl to throw a shutout in World Series history, throwing a two-hitter and striking out eight in a 4-0 win over Nashville last Friday. Whilst this is pure gibberish to most of us here in Limeyland, it nevertheless sounds like it is probably quite a good thing for her to have done. Any lingering doubts should be laid to rest by reports of her RBI single in Philadelphia’s victory over Pearland, Texas, which made the youngster only the sixth girl to collect a hit in Little League World Series history. I think that means she can bat as well.
Mo’ne’s youth puts her in good company. Former tennis prodigies Tracy Austin and Jennifer Capriati also made the cover of Sports Illustrated as 13-year-olds, in 1976 and 1990, respectively. Venus Williams (1997), Maria Sharapova (2004) and Serena Williams (1999), figure skater Michelle Kwan (1998) and basketball’s LeBron James (2002) all made it as 17-year-olds.
“Last week, this week, maybe next week, she’s owned the sports conversation,” Sports Illustrated manager editor Chris Stone said. “How often do you get to say this about a 13-year-old girl? It’s the easiest type of story to identify as a cover story.
“The writer, Albert Chen, said it perfectly in the story, ‘She’s a lot of things to a lot of different people, all of them good things: a totem for inner-city baseball, a role model for your 10-year-old niece, a role model for your 10-year-old nephew,’ ” Stone said, adding: “Most of all, she’s a laid-back kid just having a really good time.”
Mo’ne herself is less effusive about baseball than the nation is about her; she would prefer to play basketball and harbours a dream to play for the University of Connecticut.
“To be honest, I never thought I’d be famous for baseball,” she says. “I want to play basketball, and I could also do both basketball and baseball — but I really want to play basketball.”
She also says that she is learning to deal with the media spotlight.
“People were like, ‘Oh, there are going to be people running up to you taking pictures’ and I thought it was going to be a bunch of little kids. But it’s grown-ups! And that’s, like, creepy,” she said. Creepy is the least Mo’ne will need to worry about if she achieves anywhere near her potential. We all hope she will take it in her stride.
