Chelsea Baker: 13-Year-Old Girl Leads Little League

Chelsea Bake: Top Pitcher in Little League Baseball

Photos

Chelsea Baker: Baseball is for Girls

see larger image

uploaded by Jordan Yerman

Brandon Farms are Little League regular, city, and district champions; and their star player is a bespectacled 13-year-old girl named Chelsea Baker. Aside from being the only girl on the Brandon Farms team, she's considered the top Little League pitcher in the US.

Chelsea Baker's Deadly Knuckleball

With her 65mph fastball, Baker faces a lot of negativity, especially from the parents of the boys that she strikes out. Her secret weapon: the knuckleball, which she spent two years perfecting. She learned the knuckleball from Joe Niekro, who pitched for the Cubs, Tigers, Padres, Braves, Astros, Yankees, and Twins over a 21-year career.

Before his death from a brain aneurysm in 2006, Niekro was Baker's pitching coach, and his knuckleball lives on through her.