In a league of her own
Girl hangs tough in an all-boys baseball league

***image1***Melissa Eslinger came out of the dugout with a smile on her face. Her team had just earned a resounding 16-4 victory on the diamond.

This diamond wasn’t necessarily built for girls, though. This was a baseball diamond and this was a baseball game. Not only was Eslinger bucking the odds by being on the team, she was shattering them by being the starting second baseman.

But she claims that she doesn’t feel a hair out of place while she is out there. Why should she? She has been doing it for 10 years now. And at the age of 15, she is showing she can hang with the big boys too.

“I started tee-ball by copying my brother and I turned out being better than him,” said Eslinger.

The thing that she says everyone asks her is why she doesn’t play softball. Her answer is usually pretty simple.

“I hate it,” she says. “I am too competitive and I get along with the guys better than the girls.”

Her mother and other moms across the league think it’s great.

“Whatever she wants to do, I support her,” said Melissa’s mother Natalie Eslinger. “All the moms love that she’s on the team, representing for the girls.”

The situation isn’t always as easy as it seems, though. Being a girl in an all-boys league and playing a boys’ sport comes with a number of hurdles.
It’s not necessarily the trivial things that get to her, either. Being asked out while standing on second base or the common jeers from opponents don’t faze her. What really eats at her is fairness.

“Sometimes, I don’t get the chance to prove myself. I will get shut out right away,” she said.

This motivates her to keep battling and prevail when she finally does get the chance. She points to a situation in a recent game. She was hearing comments from boys on the opposing team.

“They were talking trash,” she said.

During her next at-bat, she ripped a shot to center field and ended up on third with a triple. That silenced the other dugout real quickly.

It’s those kinds of performances that have helped propel her team to a 7-2 record to start the season.

“It’s been fun coaching Melissa. I am the lucky one to have her on my team. She is my kind of girl,” said Brent Belschner, coach of Melissa’s team, the Tigers.

Eslinger’s next challenge is steaming forward at this very moment. At age 15 she is on the verge of advancing from the 13 to 15 year old league into the 16 to 18 year old league.

She isn’t getting much bigger and the guys definitely aren’t getting any smaller. As she weighs her options, she says she is even contemplating a cross over to the “other side”, or as most call it, “softball.”

Regardless of what she decides, the hurdles she has cleared over the last 10 years will give her the resolve she needs to succeed.