Cyndi Loza

Twelve-year-old Christie Spisak stands 4 feet 7 inches tall. Her hair is in pigtails and she’s at the plate facing a pitcher who does it all: Fast balls, change-ups, knuckle balls — you name it. Her team, the Chicago Pioneers, desperately needs runs. As the baseball comes hurtling toward her, she smacks it cleanly into left center field for a base hit.

A little later, as she was spitting out sunflower seed husks in the dugout, she said of pressure situations: “It’s not that scary. I’m used to it. I’ve been playing since I was 4 or 5. I’ve faced tougher pitchers.”

What she didn’t mention is that the pitcher and the rest of the team her Pioneers faced last Thursday at Butler Lake Park in north suburban Libertyville were all boys, including a 5-foot-11-inch, 195-pounder.

Close to victory

The Pioneers — who range in age from 12 to 15 — are believed to be the first all-girls baseball team to play in an all-boys U.S. baseball league.

The Pioneers, who have yet to win a game in nine tries, lost 15-6 against the Libertyville Wild Cats. But they’ve come close to victory, including against the best team in their North Shore Baseball League.

“If we [field] the right team on the right day, we could beat any of these other teams,” said Mary Jo Stegeman, the team’s undaunted founder, who lives in Skokie. “I have no doubt the wins will come.”

Many of the Pioneers have similar stories: They grew up playing baseball in the streets and in backyards with their fathers and brothers. They’ve played as the lone, sometimes unwelcome girl, on boys’ teams. Most are told they should play softball instead.

Stegeman, whose 23-year-old daughter has played on the women’s national baseball team, didn’t think that was right. Last December, Stegeman approached the North Shore league — which has about 200 teams with players ranging in ages from 9 to 14 — and asked for help.

The league welcomed the girls’ team without hesitation.

“Why not?” said Bob O’Donnell, the league’s baseball director. “The girls who play on that team play high-caliber baseball. There’s really no one else that we are aware of that serves that need.”

The girls don’t get special treatment, although 15-year-old girls are allowed to play in the 14-year-olds’ division because there’s nowhere else for them to play, O’Donnell said.

Last Thursday evening, the Wild Cats were practicing when their opponents arrived. Almost without exception, the boys made it clear they couldn’t lose to a girls team.

“I think I’m going to give a little more effort because a lot of my friends are coming, and I’ll be laughed at for a year if we lose,” said Mikey Klein, a boisterous 14-year-old.

The girls fully expected this reaction from their opponents.

“Every time they see us, they have this look like it’s going to be easy — and during the games, they’re laughing at us,” said pitcher Natalie Martinez, 14. “But not all of them.”

The boys don’t tend to laugh at Martinez, who throws an arrow-straight fastball in the mid-50s. And the boys weren’t laughing when the girls took a one-run lead in the first inning. But the lead didn’t last. The boys’ team started to pile it on in the second inning, taking a 5-1 lead. The Pioneers’ catcher pounded the turf with her fist when she missed an easy pop-up.

Tears streamed down the face of one frustrated, injured player after she struck out near the end of the game. But nobody gave up, and all of the girls cheered wildly when Spisak cracked her late-game base hit.

‘Stupid errors’

“It was pitching and stupid errors,” catcher Anna Cella said at the end of the game. “I just want to take a cold shower.”

What the girls didn’t hear were the mothers of the opposing team chatting in the stands. One of those was Karen Kolb, who marveled at the opportunities given to the girls on the field.

“I think all the moms are living vicariously through [the Pioneers], wishing we’d had our own day in the sun,” said Kolb, 48.

And even some of the boys, grudgingly, conceded that the girls aren’t out of place in their league.

Will Steinhauser, 14, who gave up the hit to Spisak, liked what he saw in Martinez’s pitching.

“She’s pitched pretty well,” he said. “She had good accuracy, and the team never really gave up.”