Love that, thanks for posting. I remember them. That court gave rise to Rosie Beard Black and her team known as The Queen and Her Court. They toured at my middle school and my dad took us to see them. Great experience. ROSIE BLACK'S best pitches? ''Well,'' she says, with only a slight hesitation, ''the riser, the drop, the sinking curve and the flat curve, the knuckleball, three or four changeups and I guess you'd have to include the in-drop, too.'' As the star of the four-person softball team called The Queen and Her Court, the 5-foot-9-inch Rosie Black has 16 or 17 pitches that she throws with alarming effectiveness. And that's not counting the trick pitches - behind the back, between the legs, blindfolded and pitching from second base. What she has accomplished in 21 years as a professional - starting at age 12 - with her assortment of pitches and windups, double windmill and otherwise, has been astonishing. Pitching almost exclusively against men as her team travels across the country, Rosie has won nearly 97 percent of her games, pitched 441 perfect games and compiled more than 49,000 strikeouts in her career.... Rosie has hurled against big leaguers like Johnny Bench and Willie Mays and a quartet from the 1969 World Champion Mets, and handled them all with casual ease. ''C'mon, Rosie, Baby,'' Mays called out to her. Zip. Zip. Zip. Mays went down. ''She's one of the best pitchers I ever saw,'' he concluded. Johnny Bench succumbed similarly. ''I wasn't prepared for a ball coming that fast,'' he said. ''I've been playing against men all my life,'' said Rosie, ''so there's no special thrill in striking them out. And I'm no women's libber. I have nothing against men. In fact, I love 'em.''
I guess I really am old now. In my HS days at DSHS, mens fast pitch softball was very popular. Saw the King in person a couple of times, your at bat was a “success” if your bat touched even one pitch before you struck out. On another note for the LSU women, catcher play in first game not so good at plays at the plate against the Gophettes. We live in Keller Texas, the Lady Indians (yep, use the name for years now), are two time 6A State Champs and just won Regional (Like winning St Ch in La.), headed back to state. LSU has commit from KHS catcher, a junior, she could play LB for Oeaux, but wont.
