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‘Don’t stop playing’: Girls who love baseball look to show they belong on the field

Bolts 10U player Elizabeth Garcia, 10, scores in a 18-8 win over the Arizona Peaches at the 2024 Baseball For All tournament in Kentucky. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Bolts 10U player Elizabeth Garcia, 10, scores in a 18-8 win over the Arizona Peaches at the 2024 Baseball For All tournament in Kentucky. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

Lilyana “Lily” Mrozek expected growing pains when her Little League baseball team in Citrus County added players for the fall 2021 season. Then, the comments started.

“You don’t belong on the field,’” Brooke Mrozek, Lilyana’s mother, said her daughter, who was then 13, suddenly began hearing, for the first time in her ninth season in that league. “‘You belong in the kitchen making me a sandwich.’ Things like that because she’s a girl.”

According to the mother, when she brought her concerns to the team’s coach, nothing changed. The response by league officials: Lily’s a girl. She’s going to get yelled at. She should get used to it, and not let it get to her as much. Importantly, Lily wouldn’t be able to switch teams.

After skipping a few games, Lily returned to finish her final season with the team.

That same year, she joined the Florida Bolts, a statewide all-girls baseball organization based three hours south in Cape Coral and which competed in a national tournament in Maryland.

“I get goosebumps every time I think about it, because we show up and there’s hundreds of girls on this field,” said Brooke Mrozek, 38.

 Months later, the Bolts needed a new president. Mrozek volunteered, and brought the Bolts to Homosassa, an hour north of Tampa. They have about 40 girls playing in four divisions: 10U, 14U, 16U and 18U. In July, the 10U team won its division championship at the Baseball For All tournament in Kentucky. Its team included players from Florida, Georgia and Ontario, Canada.

Blakely Olszewski, Mireille Van Dorn and Addie Kane (left to right), all 10, enjoy shaved ice in the Kentucky heat after winning two games that day. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Blakely Olszewski, Mireille Van Dorn and Addie Kane (left to right), all 10, enjoy shaved ice in the Kentucky heat after winning two games that day. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

 No woman has ever played in Major League Baseball. Olivia Pichardo, of Brown University, became the only female ballplayer to compete in a NCAA Division I game, in March 2023.

 In Florida, 24 girls played the sport on high school teams in 2024. That was just .001% of the total number of baseball players, according to the Florida High School Athletics Association. Nationally, 1,561 girls out of 480,012 high schoolers, or .003%, played baseball between 2022 and 2023, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

With Beyoncé and Taylor Swift routinely setting concert attendance records, it’s easy to point to achievements, and say look how far women have come. Look, a woman atop a major party’s presidential ticket. Look at this superhero movie where all the main characters are women.

But for so many young girls, that’s not their experience in their neighborhoods and at their local parks. Young girls in the United Kingdom are killed attending a Swift-themed party. Policies around genital examinations to play girls’ sports float around state legislatures.

Girls can’t play baseball without someone else’s parents telling them to go away. It’s a heavy weight – a cognitive dissidence – that society throws at 10 year olds and says figure it out.

You can be a girl. But only at events we want you to attend. Only in the style we want to dress you in. Only acting in the way we want. There’s no room for girls to just exist. Seemingly everything becomes a wedge issue to fight another culture war.

The girls in the dugout, in the infield, in the outfield – they know they’re not wanted. If someone whispers your name and looks in your direction, they’re likely talking about you. The girls hear it. They see it. They know you don’t want them there. And they don’t care. They’re not leaving.

Bolts 18U player Kennedy Daley, 16, hits a baseball. Her team finished lost in their divisional championship game against the Arizona Peaches. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Bolts 18U player Kennedy Daley, 16, hits a baseball. Her team finished lost in their divisional championship game against the Arizona Peaches. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

That’s all these girls are asking for: A chance to prove why they deserve to be on the baseball team. They’re not asking for a guaranteed spot. They want to compete. They want to show what they are capable of doing on a field, no matter the team or league. No matter their gender.

Finding motivation in hard moments

Matt Olszewski, an attorney near Orlando, coached the Bolts’ 10U championship team. He treated all his players just like he did his two daughters on the team. He was loud, throwing his hands up when frustrated. He looked every girl in the eyes, balancing constructive criticism with awareness that some were only 7 years old and had never faced live pitching.

Olszewski, 47, also knew what these girls faced back home.

Most little boys look up to their fathers as superheroes. If their dad – their Superman – yells at a girl on their recreation and school teams, then maybe she was a villain. Maybe she shouldn’t have been there. Maybe she deserved to get yelled at, and they should yell at her, too.

Elizabeth Garcia and Bolts CEO Brooke Mrozek pose for photos after the 10U team won their division at the Kentucky tournament. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Elizabeth Garcia and Bolts CEO Brooke Mrozek pose for photos after the 10U team won their division at the Kentucky tournament. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

Referring to his oldest daughter, Blakely, 10, a shortstop, pitcher and catcher, Olszewski said: “When she first started, obviously it would get to her, and you’d see the emotions on her face. That just breaks your heart as a dad, because you can’t do anything about it.”

As a parent, there are no good options. If you bring it up to the coach, your child might get benched for complaining. Even if that doesn’t happen, there’s no guarantee that the harassment will stop. So, Olszewski taught his girls to find motivation in the hard moments. It’s an extra reason to hit the ball just a bit harder, to sprint down the first base line even on routine groundouts. Another justification to keep going, keep pushing, keep trying.

“That’s how you got to be,” he said about Blakely. “I think it’s easy for kids to be like, ‘I’m just going to give up because it’s easy.’ But she worked harder and proved everyone wrong.”

The older Bolts players don’t hide the fact that the harassment continues – and sometimes gets worse – as the competition for collegiate scholarships increases.

Elizabeth Garcia, 10, and Lilyana Mrozek, 15, discuss how to approach an at-bat before Garcia steps into the batter’s box. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Elizabeth Garcia, 10, and Lilyana Mrozek, 15, discuss how to approach an at-bat before Garcia steps into the batter’s box. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

Olszewski said he tried to focus on the things that he could change, rather than worrying about things outside of his control. He takes his girls to the batting cage to practice hitting correctly. He plays catch in the front yard after he gets home to work on tracking the ball.

And, if their future high school coach refuses to put them on the field, Olszewski doesn’t care. He’ll just enroll his children in a different school or find another team.

“If they’re good enough, I’ll find a school that will let them play,” he said.

A Decadeslong Battle

Baseball has been constant in Dareth Doyon’s life. At age 6, she played in the Pawtucket Slaterettes league in Rhode Island. Now, at 44, she still plays with childhood friends, though her knees ache more now than when she first started catching. “It’s my stress reliever,” she said. “I can sometimes be a little bit of a workaholic, so it forces me to get out and have a life outside.”

Her father Paul Doyon, 69, was a Slaterettes coach and vice president before retiring in Florida. “I just loved to teach them how to throw a ball,” he said. “I just love to see them progress. That was my joy.”
One of Doyon’s favorite Slaterettes moments was teaching a woman in her early 20s to hit a baseball. How to track the ball as it flew toward the plate. To take a step before trying to hit it and follow through with her swing after contact. Then, he stepped away and let her step into the batter’s box. She hit the ball. “That, to me, was enough joy to light up my whole day,” he said.

Doyon said he has seen the culture around women’s sports shift; more people accept that women belong on the field than they did four decades ago. These days, the Slaterettes have better facilities, stadium lights and even umpires to call balls and strikes. That wasn’t always the case.

Older Bolts players (left to right) Ellianna Rodriguez (with girl in lap), Shelby Brobst and Lilyana Mrozek cheer for the 10U “Baby Bolts.” (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Older Bolts players (left to right) Ellianna Rodriguez (with girl in lap), Shelby Brobst and Lilyana Mrozek cheer for the 10U “Baby Bolts.” (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

The fields the Slaterettes used to play on were full of rocks and holes, so the coaches took rakes and ensured the grass wasn’t waterlogged. They’d clean up the mound so players could pitch.

When his daughter was younger, the umpires wouldn’t take the organization seriously, Doyon said. Sometimes, they wouldn’t show up. So he would grab his gear and step behind the plate. He joked that he was the harshest on his daughter: Every pitch was a strike.

“I was so frustrated at the way the city and the municipality treated women’s or girls’ sports,” he said. “They gave us what the boys left always, and that really bothered the heck out of me, and that’s why I got so involved in it. … They should be getting the same rights as men.”

Nationally, some organizations tried to elevate women without much long-term success. MLB banned them from playing in the majors in 1952. The All-American Girls Baseball League featured in the Tom Hanks’ movie “A League of Their Own” had its final season in 1954. The Negro Leagues invited some Black women to play, but that didn’t last long either.
 
While Jackie Robinson and Minnie Miñoso smashed color barriers for Black and Hispanic men, women weren’t wanted after World War II. See ya later, Dottie Schroeder and Toni Stone.

 MLB now recognizes Pawtucket Slaterettes as one of the nation’s few women’s baseball leagues. More than 120 women and girls – from age 6 to into their 50s – play in five divisions.

10U player Macie Hood, 10, signs a team poster after the Bolts won their division at the Baseball For All national tournament. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
10U player Macie Hood, 10, signs a team poster after the Bolts won their division at the Baseball For All national tournament. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

“It really does give women a place that they find time for themselves, especially if they’re moms,” said Bethanie Rado, the league’s president. “You hear so frequently, ‘I spend my life doing everything for my kids,’ but they have that two games a week and the practice.”

And yet there are still people who believe women should play softball instead of baseball.

“Even today, when I say to somebody that I’m playing baseball, they’re looking at me going,

‘You mean softball, right?’” Dareth Doyon said.

That notion also frustrates Veronica Alvarez, manager of the USA Baseball Women’s national team. “In the U.S., everyone’s brainwashed to think that girls play softball and boys play baseball,” said Alverez, a member of the U.S. team which won a gold medal at the 2015 Pan American Games. “It’s just almost ridiculous to the point that people can’t see it, because it doesn’t fall into line with what they’ve expected their whole lives.”

Role models in the community

Chet Verigan and his daughter Grace traveled from near Atlanta to play with the 16U Bolts. He’s an assistant coach, but they miss most practices because of the seven-hour drive to Homosassa.

Grace, 16, started playing later than most baseball players; she was 11 and had watched her twin brother play on a team in which her father also plays a key role.

Verigan, 51, was a quiet and constant presence in the Bolts’ dugouts. He didn’t yell often; he relied on soft reassurances. Between innings, he pulled Grace aside and handed her a bite of food with firm advice on how to approach her at-bats.

Addie Kane, of Ontario, Canada, receives her first-place medal after the Bolts 10U won their divisional championship at the tournament in Kentucky. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Addie Kane, of Ontario, Canada, receives her first-place medal after the Bolts 10U won their divisional championship at the tournament in Kentucky. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

“The best thing about my dad being the head coach is that if I ever get any crap, I can just go to him,” Grace said. “I don’t have to worry about being judged as much.”

 Men should help ensure that baseball as a sport doesn’t abandon girls, Verigan said. “So I take every opportunity I get to counteract that and tell the girls are doing a good job,” he said.

As a coach, he has heard boys say that girls aren’t good at baseball. That their friends throw like a girl or hit like a girl. It’s never a compliment. It’s always a criticism said with a biting tone.

 Verigan tries to remind the girls he coaches that those opinions shouldn’t matter.

“Every girl that I see out there, I tell them, ‘Don’t stop playing because someone told you to stop playing baseball. Don’t let anyone ever tell you can’t play baseball,’” he said.

Adleigh “Addie” Kane is as tough as 10-year-olds come – unafraid to assert herself on the pitcher’s mound and on the basepath. She marches into the batter’s box with a ribbon in her hair and easily knocks balls over outfielders’ heads. She readily runs straight into a catcher and brushes it off if, happy that it means giving her team another run.
 
Addie traveled with her family from Ontario to play with the 10U Bolts at the tournament in Kentucky, helping lead the team to its championship. Back home, her presence on the field has also made an impact. Because of her, other girls in her community want to play, too.

“Dads and moms will come over to me and say, ‘My daughter made us. We signed up our daughter because we watched your daughter,’” her father Kyle Kane said. “I know she really takes that seriously, and feels responsible and really wants to do well – and show them that if they wanted to play too, there’s an opportunity to play.”

Bolts 10U head coach Matt Olszewski ties his 10-year-old daughter Blakely’s shoelaces before she takes her turn at the plate. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
Bolts 10U head coach Matt Olszewski ties his 10-year-old daughter Blakely’s shoelaces before she takes her turn at the plate. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

Even though she felt like she had to prove herself on a baseball field, Addie said it felt good that girls looked up to her: “I can make a difference.” And yet she faces the same challenges other girls do. “I get along with girls a lot better,” she said. “Being the only girl on the team is a little bit hard because they (boys) always think less of you.”

When she’s older, Addie wants to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Like any pitcher her age – male or female – she admires two-way phenomenon Shohei Otani.

By then, just maybe, women will get to play alongside men in the majors.

And so the older girls know the end is coming soon. Baseball isn’t readily welcoming them to play in college and, of course, some don’t want to continue playing the sport after high school. Every inning played feels like it’s three outs closer to being the last.

Right now, however, college admissions and career choices can wait.

“It’s not really about winning,” said Lily Mrozek, now 15, almost three years past all of those negative comments in 2021. And despite her 16U team’s losing record in Kentucky, she said: “It’s about getting the opportunity to play. We deserve to be able to have fun.”

Before their first games at the tournament, Brooke Mrozek gave all of her players blue and white bracelets with baseball charms. When facing criticism for playing baseball, she said, they should think of the friendships they would make during the week.

“Continue to be yourself,” Mrozek said. “Continue to push for what you believe in – and then just find the acceptance. Find those people that do believe in you.”

A piece of jewelry might not change her life, but a little girl might decide she wants to play baseball after watching Lily, Addie, Grace, Blakely, etc., step into the batter’s box. And she’ll want her own bracelet – as a reminder that she belongs on the field and not in the kitchen.

The Bolts 10U team celebrates winning their Baseball For All championship. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)
The Bolts 10U team celebrates winning their Baseball For All championship. (Liana Handler/WUFT News)

Liana is a reporter for WUFT News who can be reached by calling 352-392-6397 or emailing news@wuft.org.