A friend of mine will be playing for the Chicago Bandits this summer.
“Who?”, you ask.
“The Chicago Bandits women’s professional fast pitch softball team”, I answer.
UncleLar niece, Missy Beseres (bad photo in the link BTW), was drafted by the Bandits as a pitcher. She’ll join Chicago once her Penn State career end – Penn State is awaiting an invitation to the NCAA tournament expected to come later today.
Missy set a Penn State career record for wins this year – she currently sits at 53 over her four years here. A spot on the Bandits roster opened up when uberbabe Jennie Finch got pregnant. A couple of years ago Finch dethroned Anna Kournikova as ESPN’s Hottest Female Athlete.
Here’s a photo of Jennie in action (I don’t think this is an official Chicago Bandit uniform however).
Here’s a shot of Missy in action (that is an official Penn State uniform).
I suspect that Missy will only be on the roster until Jennie makes it back from her pregnancy (she had a baby boy a week ago). The Bandits have a powerful pitching staff and I’m not sure that Missy has quite reached that level yet.
What amazes me these days is the number of opportunities for women to play professional sports. If Missy makes the squad, she will be the fifth female I personally know who is a professional athlete. The others are Jess Brungo on the Connecticut Sun basketball team, and Syndie Nadeau and Ashley Pedersen who both play professional volleyball in Paris and Barcelona respectively, and Joanna Lohman who has played for both the New York Power and Washington Freedom professional soccer teams along with the US National team. I think it’s wonderful that these girls get an opportunity to continue to excel even beyond college at the highest levels in their chosen sports.