Westchester girls in MLB program show baseball's not just for boys

Kate Fahy remembers being selected to her first Little League district baseball all-star team. It meant a lot. A girl who'd initially worried about fitting in when joining her Little League team was being recognized as not just part of her team but one of the area's best players.

"It was a huge accomplishment for me," Fahy said. But what really stands out to her about the experience is her dad relaying telling her he'd met a coach from a different team there who'd told him another girl who'd been selected for the honor was the best player on his team. That was Mina Hwangbo.

Now both girls are a year or two away from likely playing varsity high school baseball. This past weekend, Fahy and Hwangbo further solidified their already deep commitments to a game neither sees as just for boys. The two were among more than 90 girls selected to participate in MLB's and USA Baseball's Trailblazer Series, a baseball training program held at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Florida.

The program launched in 2017 but is under a bigger spotlight with women beginning to stream into baseball through the Women's Professional Baseball League that launched this year and the participation of a few women in the high-level-baseball-meets-entertainment Banana Ball, which is selling out large professional parks, including Yankee Stadium. Baseball is no longer just a boys sport While Little League Baseball, pressured by changing times and lawsuits, including from the National Organization of Women, ended in 1974 its ban on allowing girls to play, the door that opened that day has never seemed truly wide open. Girls who start out in baseball often gravitate to softball, not so much because they like that game better, but there's less acceptance of girls playing with and against boys, especially as they get older.