Baseball: A Girl’s Sport
Thirteen-year-old Naomi “Nini” Gutierrez began playing with the Humboldt Park Gators, an all-girls baseball team in Chicago, about two months after they were formed in 2019. The Gators played weekly games against boys teams from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs during their 2021 season. Nini is known as the teammate that always has a positive attitude on the field and in the dugout. If one of her teammates is upset she tries to uplift them. She always cheers on her teammates even if they’re out in the field and she is sitting in the dugout. Nini continually works hard to improve her skills, and her love of the game is always on display. Her two older brothers, Daymien and Amar, play competitively on teams of their own. Nini doesn’t have a hitting coach, so her brothers regularly run drills with her and give her pointers. Whenever they don’t have games, Daymien, Amar, and Nini head to Little Cubs Field in Humboldt Park or another local baseball diamond and work on hitting and fielding. This summer, toward the end of the season, Nini’s baseball journey reached a high point at the National Girls Baseball Tournament in Maryland run by Baseball for All. The National Girls Baseball Tournament was the biggest and farthest tournament she ever played in. Though she didn’t get to start any games during the tournament, Nini had a clutch hit in the semifinal. In the last inning her team had two outs and was trailing by a run. Nini was up to bat and with a full count, hit a single to drive a run home to tie the game. Her team went on to win the semifinal and the championship game, bringing a championship back to Chicago.
