Girls just want to have fun – and play ball

Colbie Wolf is used to being on her own playing the sport she loves, but for most of last week she joined other girls around the country obsessed with America’s pastime.

Wolf, a 7-year-old rising second grader at Orchard Park Elementary, is the only girl on the Gastonia Grizzlies, a boys’ 8-under youth league baseball team, but she doesn’t let that get to her.

“They’ve all welcomed and supported her, and she loves playing with all of those boys,” Wolf’s mom, Michelle, said.

But for a week, from July 21-27, through the nonprofit Baseball For All which cultivates the love of baseball for girls, Wolf was surrounded by more than 200 girls from all over the country who are baseball players at the largest girls-only tournament in the country.

“It was really fun,” she said. “I’ve never been able to play with all girls, so it was a fun experience.”

Wolf had originally hoped to play with the Georgia Peaches, but that team couldn’t find enough players to field a team.

She was welcomed with the East Bay Oaks 8- and 10-under teams and chosen to represent the Palmetto state. Despite not being able to practice with her new West Coast teammates before the four-game tournament, Wolf took to the field as the team’s final member and had a lasting impact.

Her East Bay team went 4-0 over the week-long tournament, with Wolf hitting first and second in the batting order and playing shortstop and first base, positions she isn’t used to, but still played well.

The highlight of the week, however, came off the recreation-league field.

Wolf has become close to Anna Kimbrell, a 2009 Nation Ford High graduate and former Team USA member who played at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. She is recognized as the first girl in South Carolina to play both boys’ varsity baseball and American Legion baseball.

“I think when a lot of people saw Colbie playing, they would say, ‘Hey, you should meet Anna Kimbrell. She’s from Fort Mill, too,’” Michelle Wolf said.

“She was a girl on an all-boys baseball team who played for USA baseball. We got in touch with Anna’s mom and now we fell like we’ve been friends forever because we do so much when they’re home.”

Playing during the week when the Wolfs were in California, Kimbrell teamed with pitcher Kelsie Whitmore to form what is believed to be the first all-woman pitcher/catcher battery in the history of men’s professional baseball as members of the Sonoma Stompers, an independent team affiliated with the Pacific Association Professional Baseball League.

For Wolf, seeing her idol play in a historic game on the West coast was a huge ploy.

“It was really good. She played catcher for the whole games,” Wolf said.

But the surprises kept coming.

Kimbrell showed up at one of Wolf’s games in California, making a surprise trip to offer support to one of her biggest fans.

“It was really cool that Anna came,” Michelle Wolf said.

“We had driven out to Sonoma to watch her play – I mean what are the chances that we would be out there for the first female battery, because what are the chances of that happening? But Anna came and surprised Colbie and watched her game. That was really cool.”

Kimbrell has supported Wolf in the past, allowing her to twice serve as a bat girl for a Team USA qualifying tournament. Kimbrell is on her way to the Baseball World Cup, which is being held this month in Seoul.

But Wolf is moving on, too.

She spent this past season with the Grizzlies as the youngest player on her 8-under team. This year, she’ll be coached by her dad and join the Carolina Reds out of Rock Hill as her current teammates move up a division.

Michelle Wolf says baseball has chosen her daughter, but Wolf has no plans of giving up her favorite sport anytime soon despite usually being the only girl in a traditionally boys sport.

“I love hitting and fielding,” she said.

“I don’t like sitting the bench, but I like being in action.”

This story was originally published August 1, 2016 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Girls just want to have fun – and play ball."